
Class 

Book l___ 

Copyright^ 



COPXR5GKT DEPOSIE 



THE ESSENTIALS OF 
CHRIST IANITY 

Rev. HENEY C. SHELDON, d.d. 



THE ESSENTIALS 
OF CHRISTIANITY 



BY 

Rev. HENRY C. SHELDON, d.d. 

Author of "New Testament Theology," "Pantheistic Dilemmas 
and Other Essays in Philosophy and Religion," etc. 




NEW ^mSW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



BTJiai 

■ S 4?3 



COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY. I 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



OCT - 7 •,;,. 
^C1A683677 



TO ALL YOUNG PEOPLE 

WHO HAVE AN AMBITION TO EXAMINE THE 

GROUNDS OF A HIGH APPRECIATION OF 

CHRISTIANITY, AND OF AN EARNEST DEVOTION 

TO THE CAUSE OF ITS PROPAGATION IN THE WORLD? 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

This book was designed for young people 
sufficiently advanced to understand, without 
serious difficulty, discussions in religion and 
theology embodied in non-technical phrase- 
ology. Indeed, in its primary form the trea- 
tise consisted of lectures given to successive 
classes of college students. Recently these 
have been revised and enlarged. It is our hope 
that intelligent laymen generally will find the 
book well adjusted to their antecedents and 
needs. 

The apologetic basis of the book may appear 
somewhat novel. It is believed, however, that 
it will invite no unfavorable judgment, since 
the prominence assigned to the point of view 
of the comparative study of religions is in line 
with a widely-felt demand of our age. 

The thanks of the author are due to the 
Methodist Book Concern for permission to 
use a number of paragraphs which in sub- 
stance or form approximate to passages con- 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

tained in his larger and very differently 
planned work, designed more especially for 
professional students of theology, and en- 
titled "System of Christian Doctrine." 



CONTENTS 

I: CHRISTIANITY AS RELATED TO OTHER 
RELIGIONS 

PAGB 

I: Religion Defined and Shown to be Native 

to Man 15 

II: The Tests Which Christianity Must Meet 
in Order to Establish Its Claim to be 

the Final Religion 24 

III: Religions Which May Be Supposed to 
Compete with Christianity — Their Merits 
and Their Defects 27 

II: CHRISTIANITY AS RELATED TO AN 

HISTORICAL BASIS AND TO WRITTEN 

ORACLES 

I: The Need of an Historical Basis for a 

Successful Religion 51 

II: The Largeness of the Historical Basis of 

Christianity 54 

III: The Rounded Character Secured to the 
Biblical Revelation by the Extraordinary 
Completeness of its Historical Basis . 64 
IV: The Rational Estimate of the Dependence 

of Christianity on Written Oracles . . 68 

III: THE PLACE OF JESUS, THE CHRIST, 

IN CHRISTIANITY 

I: The Realization of the Moral Ideal in 

Christ 79 



II 
III 
IV 

V 



Christ as Teacher or Revealer .... 92 
The Work of Christ as Redeemer ... 102 

The Lordship of Christ 112 

Supplementary Topics — The Supernatural 
Conception and the Resurrection of 

Christ 116 

ix 



x CONTENTS 

IV: THE CHRISTIAN TEACHING RESPECT- 
ING GOD 

PAGE 

I: A Word on the Proofs of the Divine Ex- 
istence 126 

II : Elements of the Hebrew Conception of God 

Reproduced in Christianity .... 131 
III: The Christian Thought of God as Father 142 
IV: The Christian View of Prayer as Shaped 
by the Recognition of the Fatherhood of 

God 151 

V: The Christian Belief in God's Benevolent 

Rule or Providence 153 

VI: The Christian Conception of the Essential 
Relation of Christ to the Heavenly 

Father 156 

VII: The Christian Teaching on the Nature and 

Office of the Holy Spirit 161 

VIII: Completion of the Christian Conception of 

God in the Doctrine of the Trinity . . 163 

V: THE CHRISTIAN TEACHING RESPECT- 
ING THE NATURE AND CONDITION 
OF MAN 

I: The Biblical and Rational View of Man's 

Origin 169 

II: Man's Dual Nature 175 

III: Man's Title to Immortality 181 

IV: The Moral Outfit of Man 187 

V: Man's Gift of Freedom 195 

VI: Man's Actual Condition as Compared with 

the Ideal . 200 

VI: THE CHRISTIAN TEACHING RESPECT- 
ING THE PERFECTING OF THE 
INDIVIDUAL 

I: Constituents of the Ideal Set Before the 

Individual 206 

II: Universality of the Call to the Christian 

Ideal 210 



CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

III: Conditions Which the Individual Must Ful- 
fill in Starting Toward the Ideal . . 916 

IV: The Divine Response and Cooperation . 222 

V: Aids to Continued Progress Toward the 

Christian Ideal 229 

VII: THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTI- 
ANITY 

I: New Testament Terms Descriptive of the 
Social Ideal — The Kingdom and the 
Church 236 

II: The Relation of the Individual Christian to 

the Church 244 

III: The Appropriate Relation Between the 

Church and State 246 

IV: Preeminence of the Ethico-Religious Char- 
acter of the Church Over the Ceremonial 
Aspect 251 

V: Liberty of the Church in Respect of Polity 258 

VI: The Church Militant 263 

VII: The Great Events Preparatory to the Era 

of The Church Triumphant .... 278 

VIII: THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIAN- 
ITY AS RESPECTS A RIGHTFUL 
CLAIM TO UNIVERSALITY 
AND FINALITY 

I: A Very Unique and Significant Antecedent 282 
II: Incomparable Realization of the Union of 

the Ideal and the Historical .... 285 

III: Exceptional Prestige and Authority on the 
Score of the Transcendent Personality of 
the Founder 287 

IV: Inclusion of Every Prominent Excellence 

Discoverable in the Ethnic Systems . . 289 

V: Inculcation of the True Ideal on the Rela- 
tion Between Morality and Religion . 294 

VI: The Upholding of a Lofty Ideal of Spirit- 
ual Sonship 297 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGB 

VII; The Making Room for Normal Emphasis 
on Service to the Present Age Alongside 
of Serious Regard for the World to 

Come 299 

VIII: The Granting of a Large Range for Con- 
tinuous Progress 302 

IX: The Ability to Meet in all Essential Re- 
spects the Demands of the Philosophical 
Ideal of Religion 304 

INDEX 311 



THE ESSENTIALS OF 
CHRISTIANITY 



THE ESSENTIALS OF 
CHRISTIANITY 



CHAPTER I: CHRISTIANITY AS 
RELATED TO OTHER RELIGIONS 

I: Religion Defined and Shown to Be Native to 

Man 

Defined as to its subjective aspect, Religion 
is belief in a Higher Power, a sense of depen- 
dence upon such a Power and an inward atti- 
tude toward it of homage or worship. Re- 
garded objectively, religion consists in actions, 
customs, and institutions which give manifes- 
tation to the belief in the Higher Power, to 
the sense of dependence, and to the attitude of 
worship. The two aspects united give the 
rounded view of what is meant by religion. 

A substitute for such a definition as the fore- 
going has recently had some currency. Pro- 
ceeding from a very specific standpoint certain 
writers prefer to define religion as simply the 

recognition and pursuit of social values. In so 

15 



16 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

doing they undoubtedly give expression to no 
mean element of truth ; at least, if the Higher 
Power is construed as the effective head and 
center of social relations. In its terms, how- 
ever, the given definition does not necessarily 
include that range of meaning. It is, there- 
fore, too vague, not to say too narrow, to ade- 
quately set forth the idea which men almost 
universally have expressed under the name of 
religion. 

It is not too much to say that religion is the 
common property of the race. Man is consti- 
tutionally a religious being. One and another 
so-called religious function may indeed be 
scarcely more than an external attachment in 
the case of this or that individual. But reli- 
gion in general is no external attachment, no 
artificial adjunct to the life of mankind. It 
has a deep and permanent spring in the fun- 
damental characteristics and relations of men. 
Back of all the artificial and arbitrary features 
which may be pointed out in various systems 
of religion we are obliged to affirm a native 
religiousness. 

Christianity, then, has this in common with 
other religions, that it is a manifestation of 
man's native bent to religion. Whatever su- 
periority it may rightfully claim, it is far from 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 17 

requiring utter disparagement of other reli- 
gions. The devoted disciple of Christianity is 
free to recognize in all religions, even in the 
lowest and poorest, an element of worth. To 
a greater or less extent they publish man's 
upward striving and his inalienable sense of 
connection with higher powers. They are not 
mere falsities, not mere eccentricities, not mere 
products of fraud and caprice. A profound 
sentiment, and one prophetic of a high destiny 
for man, is discoverable through all the net- 
work of their prescriptions and practices, crude 
and grotesque as these may have been in many 
instances. 

That religion is no chance product in the 
world, but has rather a perennial source in the 
depths of human nature itself, is a legitimate 
induction from the record of history. It is at- 
tested, in the first place, by the enormous bulk 
of religious facts and by the high proportion 
which these bear to the known works and ex- 
periences of the race. One can hardly place 
his hand upon history anywhere without com- 
ing into contact with memorials of religion. 
They abound in the literature of the world. 
They are found in the earliest poetry of the 
Orient as well as in the latest of the Occident. 
They claim a large place in the achievements 



18 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of the sculpture and architecture of every age. 
The spade of the archaeologist uncovers them 
wherever it brings to light any vestiges of 
buried civilizations. Philology finds them im- 
bedded in the languages of the world as far 
back as it can trace human speech toward its 
primitive source. In short, the further inves- 
tigation is pushed the more vivid becomes the 
impression of the force with which religion 
has wrought as a motive power among men. 
An eminent writer speaks soberly when he 
says: "It is the largest and most ubiquitous 
fact connected with the existence of mankind 
upon earth." * 

The truth that religion is rooted in man's 
nature is attested not merely by the bulk of 
religious facts that have been brought to view, 
but also by lack of a single authentic specimen 
of a tribe wholly destitute of religion. It is not 
a little suggestive that no one would think of 
looking for such a tribe except among men 
most deeply debased. Evidently a group of 
men thus conditioned, even if they should be 
found entirely destitute of religion, would af- 
ford no valid proof against the conclusion that 
human nature provides for religion. As point- 
ing to a standing below the plane of true man- 

»John Flske, "Through Nature to God," p. 189. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 19 

hood, the religious deficit in them would no 
more illustrate what is characteristic of man, 
than does the social deficit in men who flee 
from society and seek absolute isolation from 
all their fellows. But it is not necessary to em- 
phasize this point. The tribe without religion 
has not been found. Supposed examples have 
failed to endure close scrutiny. It has been dis- 
covered that the religion of the savage has been 
disguised by the poverty and strangeness of 
his dialect, or hidden by his suspicion and reti- 
cence. As has been remarked by a very pains- 
taking investigator of the subject, "Even with 
much time, and care, and knowledge of lan- 
guage, it is not always easy to elicit from sav- 
ages the details of their theology. They try to 
hide from the prying and contemptuous for- 
eigner their worship of gods who seem to 
shrink, like their worshipers, before the white 
man and his mightier Deity." 2 That religion 
was born with man and has been the constant 
possession of mankind seems to be the common 
verdict of the great majority of eminent stu- 
dents of religious history and racial peculiari- 
ties. Max Miiller, Tylor, Ratzel, Quatrefages, 
Tiele, Waitz, Gerland, Peschel, and Hoskoff 
represent the most competent scholarship of 

a E. B. Tylor, "Primitive Culture," I, 382. 



20 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIxVNITY 

recent times in their expression of the convic- 
tion that no races of men can be named which 
are wholly destitute of religion. 3 

The fact that religion is founded in human 
nature may be regarded, once more, as evi- 
denced by the poor success of various attempts 
to explain religious phenomena on any other 
basis. One of the most superficial of these 
is that which refers all to priestcraft. Doubtless 
many things in the various religions of the 
world have been due to the devices of priests. 
But what has gained currency for their de- 
vices? Evidently if they had not had religious 
people to deal with they could not have effec- 
tually controlled their subjects in the name of 
religion. To suppose a group of men to be 
able to fasten upon the mass of their fellows, 
age after age, something purely arbitrary, or 
without correspondence to inborn needs, is to 
suppose the incredible. The power of priest- 
hoods, as a factor within the circle of religious 
beliefs and practices, may have been great; 
nevertheless, it is obvious to a judicial mind 
that religion as an interior bent of men has 
been the greater power, which explains the 
existence of priesthoods, as well as the appear- 

8 Compare F. B. Jevons, "Introduction to the History of Re- 
ligion" ; G. T. Ladd, "The Philosophy of Religion" ; C. H. Toy, 
"Introduction to the History of Religions." 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 21 

ance of various factors and features of reli- 
gious systems. 

A similar line of remark applies to the sup- 
position that fear, viewed as a non-religious 
feeling, drove men into religion; that being 
baffled and bruised by the forces of nature, 
they had recourse to imaginary safeguards. 
A formula for this theory was given by the 
Roman writer Statius in the words Primus in 
orbe timor deos fecit. Now it is to be con- 
ceded that fear did work as an incentive and 
was influential in determining some points of 
religious practice. But, after all, it was only 
the partial and subordinate cause. Fear of 
natural evils has in itself no power to disclose 
the supernatural or divine and to impart a 
vital sense of relationship thereto. Supposing 
an already existing bent to recognize a higher 
power, then we can see that fear may increase 
the urgency of appeals in that direction; but 
we do not see that fear can create the sense of 
the presence and agency of such a power. 
Moreover, fear working by itself would make 
the content of religion to consist solely of 
means of shelter against unfriendly and ma- 
lignant powers. But religion has always had a 
different content from that. It has given place 
to friendly powers and to the thought of sat- 



22 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

isf action in fellowship with them. If we may 
trust the verdict of prominent investigators, 
this was the case with religion from the start; 
for they conclude that primitive sacrifices were 
not so much rites of expiation as rites of fel- 
lowship with the object of worship. 

Other non-religious causes, which have been 
appealed to as explaining the rise of religion, 
must in all sobriety be pronounced equally in- 
adequate. Take for instance the lively im- 
pression of natural objects. Undoubtedly it 
has had much to do in determining the spe- 
cific direction of the religious bent. Very 
likely in all the advanced stages of culture 
it has been a potent force in shaping reli- 
gious manifestations. But it is equally true 
that natural objects would never have become 
religious objects, had it not been for the 
working of religious needs and impulses. 
Only the powerful stimulus coming from 
this source could create and sustain the dis- 
position to translate the objects of sense into 
symbols and vehicles of the transcendent or 
divine. 

Take, again, the experience of dreams and 
apparitions. It is not at all incredible that 
events of this kind have furnished men with 
objects of religious contemplation, as tending 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 23 

to foster belief in spirits, whether ancestral or 
non-human. This species of belief, however, 
would never have furnished the basis for a per- 
sistent conviction of vital connection with and 
obligation toward intangible powers, but for 
needs and tendencies deeply imbedded in the 
nature of men. It is important to note that 
the particular direction of a current is one 
thing, while the perennial source of the current 
is quite another thing. Many causes may have 
shaped the manifestation of religion. The 
potent cause urging to manifestation so uni- 
versally and persistently cannot be regarded 
as anything less than the intrinsic needs and 
tendencies of the human spirit. 

What has been said thus far simply invites 
to an attitude of appreciative consideration of 
all religions. If it involves nothing in favor of 
the special claims of Christianity, it certainly 
involves nothing adverse to those claims. The 
fact that man is so fundamentally a religious 
being that, generally speaking, his nature im- 
pels under all conditions to some form of reli- 
gious faith and practice, is just the kind of 
basis that Christianity requires to justify its 
anticipation of world-wide victory. Constitu- 
tional indifference to religion might be a fatal 
barrier to progress ; with the opposition of men 



24 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

who, in the long run, cannot get along without 
a religion, it may hope to wrestle successfully. 
The ineradicable longing for religious satis- 
faction, under such conditions of the world as 
provide for the free contact of one religion with 
another, may be expected to bring men — or 
at least the greater portion of them — ultimately 
to the religion which most adequately meets the 
longing, and is most able to meet it under 
advanced stages of culture. 



II: The Tests which Christianity Must Meet in 

Order to Establish Its Claim to Universality 

and Finality 

If the Christian religion is to be made to 
appear not simply as a religion among reli- 
gions, but as the religion fitted to become uni- 
versal and ultimate, grounds for a rational 
faith in the following propositions need to be 
afforded: (1) Man, as being constitutionally 
a religious being, must in the long run have a 
religion. (2) Christianity is distinctly su- 
perior to any other historic religion. (3) The 
essential truths and spirit of Christianity are 
so high and perfect that there is no real occa- 
sion to harbor the thought of their being im- 
proved upon. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 25 

To rest the case of Christianity upon the 
establishment of these three propositions is not 
merely the dictate of convenience but of right 
reason as well. What need is there to prove 
anything more? If men must have a religion, 
if Christianity meets the religious needs of 
humanity better than any other historic sys- 
tem, and is moreover so high and perfect in its 
characteristic truths and spirit that no chance 
for surpassing them is to be recognized, then 
unmistakably its claim to universality and 
finality is solidly based. Further proofs can be 
waived as unnecessary. There is no impera- 
tive demand, for example, to establish a de- 
tailed perfection of the Bible. It is enough to 
know that the Bible excels every other com- 
pendium of sacred writings, and records a 
revelation which supplies in its aggregate re- 
sult a standard too pure and lofty to be tran- 
scended. No more is it requisite to show that 
the history of so-called Christian peoples has 
been free from great evils and abuses. It is to 
be remembered that a people truly Christian 
in anything like its whole extent has never yet 
been seen on the face of the earth ; that Chris- 
tianity has had to contend against the force of 
human selfishness, passion, and appetite, and 
therefore has been only imperfectly exempli- 



26 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

fled in the history of any nation. Impossibili- 
ties are not to be asked of any religion. The 
best religion conceivable cannot be required to 
banish in short order all evil from human so- 
ciety, made up as that society is of wayward 
free agents. What can reasonably be asked 
of it is, that it should meet the evil with un- 
compromising opposition, have an inexhaus- 
tible power to vitalize the consciences of its 
votaries, and thus be able to work progressively 
toward the reign of practical righteousness in 
all the relations of men. 

Of the three propositions mentioned as need- 
ing to be established the first has been con- 
firmed by evidences which, we judge, the 
thoughtful reader will pronounce satisfactory. 
To the establishment of the second and third 
propositions the entire line of thought in this 
treatise will be tributary. That task there- 
fore will not be formally undertaken in this 
connection. It will be advisable, however, be- 
fore proceeding further, to furnish a basis for 
a comparison of Christianity with the non- 
Christian religions by giving a brief sketch of 
the main characteristics of the latter. Thus we 
shall be in condition, as the essential content of 
Christianity is unfolded in successive chapters, 
to see the justification of the second proposi- 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 27 

tion, and also be ready with better intelligence 
to turn our thought to the concluding propo- 
sition. Direct attention will be given to these 
subjects in the concluding chapter. 



///: Religions which May Be Supposed to Coin- 
pete with Christianity — Their Merits and 
Their Defects 

As regards religions which have perished 
from the world it would be a superfluous task 
to compare Christianity with them. Their in- 
ability to maintain themselves is an indication 
of unfitness for permanent subsistence, and 
must stand against them till a resurrection to 
vitality and efficiency has been achieved. Ap- 
proximately the same may be said of a religion 
which has descended from its ancient eminence, 
and been left for a long period with a meager 
band of followers. This description applies 
to the Zoroastrian religion, which retains but 
a handful of adherents in its ancient Persian 
home and is mainly represented by the Parsis 
of India, numbering probably less than one 
hundred thousand. 

Corresponding to the contrast between the 
snow-capped mountains and the sand-wastes 
of the land which served as its early theater, 



28 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Zoroastrianism was a religion largely domi- 
nated by a sense of antagonisms. In truth it 
incorporated a dualistic feature in placing both 
good and evil back of the world and represent- 
ing them as partners in its formation. This 
point of view, as enforcing the need of continu- 
ous struggle in order to bring victory to the 
side of the powers of light and goodness, as op- 
posed to those of darkness and malignity, gave 
a certain cast of earnestness to the old Persian 
religion. It must be affirmed, however, that 
the dualism incorporated with this religion is 
not adapted permanently to satisfy either 
thought or feeling. To divide the creative 
efficiency back of the world into antagonistic 
portions offends against the philosophical de- 
mand for unity, and stands in the way of a 
serene faith in providence. The biblical pic- 
ture of a good God making a good world, into 
which moral evil comes only by creaturely 
lapse, is not only more cheerful than the dual- 
istic representation ; it affords also a decidedly 
more consistent basis for moral effort and re- 
ligious faith. Evil gets too much dignity when 
it is made to share the throne of the world. No 
doubt Zoroastrianism makes a certain amend 
for its dualistic representation of the begin- 
ning of things, in that it pictures the final tri- 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 29 

umph of the good deity. But this outcome 
is rather dictated by a brave hope than by a 
logical induction. If evil coexisted with the 
good in the beginning, it is not easy to provide 
a well-founded hope for its ultimate displace- 
ment. Other defects in Zoroastrianism might 
be specified, the most noticeable perhaps being 
the extent to which it fenced around the lives 
of men with arbitrary rules in its extravagant 
effort to guard the sanctity of the pure ele- 
ments, fire, water, and earth. 

Of living religions not more than four have 
a position and content which makes it worth 
while to compare them with Christianity. 
These are Confucianism, Buddhism, Hindu- 
ism, and Mohammedanism. That there are 
elements of worth in each of these religions will 
not be denied by any fair-minded investigator. 

If we turn to the first named, we find very 
commendable features, especially on the side 
of its ethical code. Such virtues as reverence, 
moderation, sincerity, and gentleness are wor- 
thily inculcated. The following are charac- 
teristic maxims: "It is virtue that moves 
heaven: there is no distance to which it does 
not reach. Pride brings loss and humility re- 



30 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ceives increase." 4 "Do not cherish anger 
against the obstinate and dislike them. Seek 
not every quality in one individual. You must 
have patience, and you will be successful; 
have forbearance and your virtue will be 
great." 5 "Always and in everything there 
should be reverence. Pride should not be in- 
dulged; the will should not be gratified to the 
full; pleasure should not be carried to excess. 
. . . Do not seek for victory in small conten- 
tions; do not seek for more than your share." 6 
With its many excellencies the Confucian 
ethics combines some features which invite 
criticism, at least from the viewpoint of Chris- 
tianity. There is some reason, for instance, to 
charge it with overdoing the very necessary 
stress upon the obligation of children to par- 
ents. Unquestionably this is a high and holy 
obligation, but in centering the emphasis upon 
it a certain hazard is incurred of making too 
little account of those great obligations of the 
individual soul to itself and to God which may 
perchance come into competition with parental 
wishes and ancestral models. Again, Confu- 
cianism shares a very common fault of the an- 
tique world in its relative disparagement of 

* The Shu-King, Part ii, book il § 3. 
•The Shu-King, Part v, book xxi, § 3. 
6 The Li-ki, Book i, sect, i, part i. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 31 

women. Under its regime woman attains in- 
deed to high honor as the mother of sons, but 
not in other relations. Her dignity suffers 
very appreciable abridgment from the pre- 
rogative of husbands in the matter of divorce 
and of concubinage. It may be noticed also 
that Confucius stood in contrast with the 
founder of Christianity in discrediting the ob- 
ligation to exercise good-will and love toward's 
one's enemies. At this point he fell below the 
plane of his contemporary Lao-tse. 

The great weakness of Confucianism lies 
in its lack of any adequate and vitalizing con- 
ception of God. In the writings of the sage 
himself the Supreme Being, recognized in early 
Chinese thinking under the vague title of 
"Heaven," appears only as an indistinct ob- 
ject of belief. Some expositors have even 
questioned whether in the use of Confucius 
the title stood for a personal subject. Prob- 
ably, however, there was no positive intention 
to deny personality. But still the thought of 
God was left in great indefiniteness. Nor has 
Confucianism in its subsequent history tran- 
scended this relatively empty and powerless 
notion of Deity. To the mass of its adherents 
the Supreme Being is the far-off God, a being 
respected in certain rites periodically celebrated 



m THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

by the emperor or highest exponent of the 
state, but not an object of universal and custo- 
mary worship. It is to spirits, whether ances- 
tral or non-human, that Confucianists in gen- 
eral are expected to pay most of the homage 
which they have to offer. The energizing mo- 
tive which comes from a vital apprehension of 
the living God is not native to Confucianism. 
Its own votaries have in fact, to a conspicuous 
degree, furnished a practical acknowledgment 
of its deficit on the religious side, in that they 
have sought satisfaction for their religious 
needs by borrowing from Buddhism or Taoism. 

Buddhism, not less than Confucianism, earns 
appreciation on the score of golden maxims in 
its ethical teaching. The former indeed ap- 
peals more cogently than the latter to the 
hearts of men through the element of sym- 
pathy and humanitarianism with which, in its 
original form at least, it was richly endowed. 
Gautama, the Buddha, or "enlightened one," 
was in temper a kind of Saint Francis, living 
in the sixth century before the Christian era 
(560-480). He did not, it is true, partake of 
the mystical devotion so deeply characteristic 
of the Italian philanthropist; but his heart 
overflowed with the same loving compassion. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 33 

Profoundly impressed with the miseries of 
human existence, he sought out for himself the 
way of escape, and then made it his life work 
to enlighten his fellow men respecting this 
way. Whatever may be thought of his total 
conception of salvation, it must be granted 
that his teaching embraced elements of very 
considerable worth. He ran clear of the ex- 
aggerated ceremonialism and sacerdotalism 
with which India had begun to be burdened. 
He emphasized the responsibility of the indi- 
vidual for effecting his own emancipation. He 
strongly enforced the demand for self-control 
and self-discipline. He fostered the spirit of 
tolerance and taught the duty of universal 
benevolence and gentleness. This duty could 
hardly be put more strongly than it is in vari- 
ous Buddhist texts. Of the one who is in the 
true way it is affirmed, "He lets his mind per- 
vade one quarter of the world with thoughts 
of pity, sympathy, and equanimity, and so the 
second, and so the third, and so the fourth. 
And thus the whole wide world above, below, 
around, and everywhere, does he continue to 
pervade with heart of pity, sympathy, and 
equanimity, far-reaching, grown great, and 
beyond measure." 7 A still more intense ex- 

T Tevigga Sutta, chap. iii. 



34 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

pression of the obligation of universal good- 
will appears in the following: "As a mother 
at the risk of her life watches over her own 
child, her only child, so also let everyone culti- 
vate a boundless friendly mind towards all be- 
ings." 8 

On the other hand, Buddhism viewed as a 
religious system exhibits very pronounced de- 
fects. In the first place, as originally promul- 
gated, it fell far short of doing justice to the 
thought of God. Though it may have men- 
tioned supernatural beings, it postulated for 
them no practical relation to men. They ap- 
pear as of no more account than the celestial 
ghosts to which Epicureanism gave a verbal 
acknowledgment. No creative function was 
assigned to them, they were included in the 
sphere of the changeable, and in occasional 
texts were unfavorably compared with the 
man who has attained the stage of enlighten- 
ment. But so great a stretch of negation could 
not long survive. Buddhists, no more than 
other men, were able permanently to quench 
the sense of dependence and the impulse to 
worship. The historic Buddha himself was 
turned into a veritable god, and functions co- 
extensive with the universe were assigned to 

8 The Sutta-Nipata. Mettasutta. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 35 

him. Potential or prospective Buddhas in the 
heavenly sphere were recognized as possessed 
of divine rank. This development in Buddhist 
belief was especially characteristic of the Ma- 
hayana teaching, which had much currency in 
India by the close of the first Christian cen- 
tury, and gave the type very largely to north- 
ern Buddhism. 

In the second place, Buddhism is subject to 
criticism as providing an imperfect ground for 
the consciousness of sin. Its stress is upon 
pain rather than upon sin proper. The prob- 
lem with which it deals is not so much, how to 
eliminate moral contamination, as how to get 
release from suffering, how to escape from the 
weary round of transmigrations and the entail 
of misery which passes over from one incar- 
nation to another and threatens to be per- 
petual. Detachment from the ever-whirling 
wheel of changeful being and entrance into rest 
is the consummation on which it lays the maxi- 
mum stress. That it should fail of a propor- 
tionate emphasis on the demerit of sin was in 
a way dictated by the scanty deference which 
it paid at the start to the thought of God. A 
vital recognition of the holy and all-seeing 
One, who cannot look upon sin with allowance, 



36 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

is a logical antecedent of a proper impression 
of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. 

Again, Buddhism is chargeable with a con- 
spicuous breach of consistency. According to 
its theory there is no abiding substance, cease- 
less flux being characteristic of everything. 
What is spoken of as human personality is a 
mere complex, subsisting by the juxtaposition 
of its constituents, the so-called skandhas. As 
death sunders the constituents and breaks up 
the complex, the natural inference would be 
that personal subsistence does not continue be- 
yond this life. Yet Buddhism often speaks as 
though it were the same subject which, failing 
to quench desire in this life, must be reincar- 
nated and bear in another form the evil insep- 
arable from desire. A sort of intellectual 
sleight of hand seems to be practiced at this 
point. It is as though a candle in expiring 
should ignite a second candle, and this second 
candle should then be identified with the pre- 
ceding. To identify the subject of embodied 
life, which is dissolved in death, with the suc- 
ceeding subject is quite arbitrary. But if the 
identity of the two is denied, an inquiry evi- 
dently arises as to the justice of loading on to 
the new subject the debt of the old, and of re- 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 37 

quiring the former through a life of pain to 
work off the entail. 

Once more the moral ideal of Buddhism is 
marred by undeniable imperfections. It runs 
into onesidedness both in the direction of as- 
ceticism and of quietism. The society founded 
by Gautama was a monastic society, and, while 
provision was made for a lay wing, the impli- 
cation of the Buddhistic teaching was, that to 
reach the ideal character and to gain a place 
in the rank of "wise men" belongs only to 
monks. Gautama himselfj is credited with 
placing these words upon the lips of the 
believer: "Full of hindrances is household life, 
a path defiled by passion: free as the air is the 
life of him who has renounced all worldly 
things. How difficult is it for the man who 
dwells at home to live the higher life in all its 
fullness, in all its purity, in all its bright per- 
fection! Let me then cut off my hair and 
beard, let me clothe myself in the orange-col- 
ored robes, and let me go forth from a house- 
hold life into the homeless state!" 9 

On the side of quietism the Buddhistic ideal 
is decidedly radical. It emphasizes the need 
of a total suppression of desire and aspiration, 
setting this forth indeed as the supreme obliga- 

"Tevigga Sutta, § 47. 



38 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

tion and achievement. Only thus, it is con- 
tended, can the bond to rebirth be broken and 
the chain of miserable existence be brought to 
an end; only thus can the deep calm, the per- 
fect rest of nirvana be attained. In more 
than one text the reaching of the goal in nir- 
vana seems to imply a veritable extinction of 
the self. Thus we read: "All the Buddhas 
of the past ages, numerous as the sands of the 
Ganges, by their wisdom enlightening the 
world, have all gone out as a lamp. All the 
Buddhas yet to come will perish in the same 
way." 10 The sagte, "after having revealed 
perfect enlightenment and led many kotis of 
beings to perfect rest, himself will be extin- 
guished like a lamp when the oil is ex- 
hausted." X1 Statements like these may assign 
a more emphatic meaning to nirvana than has 
been universally, or even in a majority of in- 
stances, characteristic of Buddhistic thinking, 
especially in the northern regions. But it is 
undeniable that in its general tenor Buddhism 
has given great prominence to the idea of a 
passionless existence, a state in which all de- 
sire and effort are quenched. And herein it has 
exposed itself to a double criticism. On the 
one hand the legitimacy of its assumption that 

10 Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King, Kiouen v, Varga 24. 

11 Saddharma-Pundarika xiii, 72. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 39 

the highest consummation lies in passivity or 
quiescence may properly be challenged. To 
suppose a consummation of that order to be 
the highest is to suppose emptiness and poverty 
of spirit to be superior to fullness and wealth. 
Not in the suppression of desire and activity, 
but rather in their subordination to the ends 
dictated by love and righteousness, the highest 
blessedness and glory of the human spirit are 
realized. On the other hand, the Buddhistic 
teaching is chargeable with a conspicuous in- 
consistency. To suppress desire is to suppress 
benevolent interest in one's fellows. How 
then can both the suppression of the one and 
the exercise of the other be obligatory? In 
the inculcation of the former duty Buddhistic 
teaching sets forth this precept: "Let no man 
love anything: loss of the beloved is evil. 
Those who love nothing, and hate nothing, 
have no fetters." 12 At the same time, as has 
been observed, the Buddhistic precepts rela- 
tive to universal sympathy and benevolence 
are expressed in the very strongest terms. 
Here is an appearance of contradiction which 
no ordinary wit can overcome. If perfect 
apathy is permissible or essential, universal 

12 Dhammapada, xvi. 



40 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

sympathy and good- will seem logically to be 
no necessary part of the ideal for man. 

Hinduism, as the dominant religion of In- 
dia in the present is called, had its central ante- 
cedent in the Vedic-Brahmanical religion. 
With a certain degree of propriety it might 
be styled Neo-Brahmanism. This term, how- 
ever, unless a broad meaning is put into its 
first member, does not adequately indicate the 
composite character of Hinduism. By a 
scheme of far-reaching accommodation Brah- 
manism has provided a place for almost every- 
thing that has been accepted by the people of 
India in the name of religion. "It has opened 
its doors to all comers on the two conditions 
of admitting the spiritual supremacy of the 
Brahmans and conforming to certain caste 
rules about food, intermarriage, and profes- 
sional pursuits. In this manner it has adopted 
much of the fetishism of the Negrito aborigines 
of India ; it has stooped to the practices of the 
various hill tribes, and has not scrupled to en- 
courage the adoration of the fish, the boar, the 
serpent, rocks, stones, and trees; it has bor- 
rowed ideas from the various cults of the Dra- 
vidian races, and it may even owe something to 
Christianity." 13 Hinduism has also derived 

33 Monier Williams, "Hinduism," pp. 85, 86. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 41 

not a little from Buddhism. The influence of 
the latter has been made apparent in an ap- 
proximate abolition of animal sacrifices, in an 
enlarged stress upon the notion of transmigra- 
tion, and in a tendency to award a central place 
in religion to incarnated and humanized divini- 
ties. 

In the above description of Hinduism 
grounds of criticism have already been dis- 
closed. Doubtless in the enormous collection of 
its sacred writings a considerable amount of 
genuine treasure is discoverable. The ele- 
ment of subtle speculation is largely exempli- 
fied, and most excellent maxims, ethical and 
religious, appear in one connection or another. 
But even the most charitable judgment must 
rate the offsetting features as of very serious 
consequence. 

It is evident, first of all, that in Hinduism 
eclecticism has been carried well-nigh to a be- 
wildering extreme. Unity has been mutilated, 
not to say destroyed, by the combination of a 
multitude of incongruous factors. The ques- 
tion may be raised, in truth, whether Hinduism 
can properly be styled a religion; whether it 
is not rather to be named a collection of loosely 
conjoined and intermingled religions. 

In the second place, Hinduism, in so far as 



42 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

it is built upon Brahmanism, rests upon a 
pantheistic basis. The Vedanta philosophy 
was the orthodox philosophy of Brahmanism, 
and that philosophy represented as radical a 
form of pantheism as ever had currency, teach- 
ing that the whole world of concrete being is an 
illusion, that there is only one real self, namely 
Brahman, and that the true destiny of what 
we esteem to be the individual soul is identi- 
fication with this one self. In a text of the 
Upanishads we read: "As the flowing rivers 
disappear in the sea, losing their name and 
form, thus a wise man, freed from name and 
form, goes to the divine Person who is greater 
than the great. . . . He who knows that high- 
est Brahman becomes even Brahman." 14 
Upon this pantheistic basis Hinduism rears the 
superstructure of a bizarre and luxuriant poly- 
theism. To one, therefore, who is deeply con- 
scious of the shortcomings of both pantheism 
and polytheism, it offers very scanty claims to 
credence. 

Again the ethical teaching of Hinduism is in 
great need of revision and pruning. There 
are maxims in the old Brahmanical writings in 
which the efficacy of ceremonies is lauded to 
an extent which is decidedly compromising to 

14 Mundaka-Upanishad. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 43 

ethical demands. The same writings, it is 
true, contain some texts of an opposite tenor, 
but the presence of the latter does not fully 
atone for the misleading doctrine incorporated 
with the former. In later writings also, to 
which Hinduism pays respect, the teaching is 
of a mixed character in its bearing upon the 
interests of morality. This is especially true 
of the Tantras, a class of writings among the 
least reputable in the whole range of the sacred 
literature of Hinduism. 

Finally, Hinduism, in conserving very 
largely the Brahmanical caste system, has 
given its sanction to one of the most artificial 
and despotic schemes of social organization that 
was ever invented. Proceeding from a mythi- 
cal assumption of the intrinsic inequalities of 
men, fostered by overweening sacerdotal pride 
and ambition, and raising barriers where na- 
ture never placed them, this iron-clad system 
of division and restriction plainly lies quite 
outside the possibility of rational justification. 

Mohammedanism earns respect on several 
grounds. It makes a very earnest protest 
against all polytheistic subdivision of the di- 
vine. It gives a majestic picture of divine 
sovereignty. It asserts very strongly man's 



44 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

responsibility to God, and lays profound stress 
on the duty of unqualified surrender to the di- 
vine will. In at least the earlier part of his 
career Mohammed was undoubtedly a sincere 
reformer, who believed that the convictions 
burning in his heart were from above. 

On the other hand there are several grounds 
of an unfavorable estimate of Mohammedan- 
ism. In the first place, it has but slight claim 
to originality. "There is nothing original in 
the Koran," says Pfleiderer, "beyond the 
statement of the mission of Mohammed.' ' 15 
This may be putting the case rather strongly, 
but it is quite evident to the candid investigator 
that Mohammed drew, at second hand, a very 
considerable portion of his materials from 
Judaism and Christianity, especially the for- 
mer. That he did not derive his information 
directly from the oracles of either is made glar- 
ingly apparent by misconceptions and per- 
versions in various passages of the Koran. 

Again Mohammedanism is subject to criti- 
cism on the score of a one-sided representation 
of God. It portrays Him predominantly as 
the all-powerful sovereign. No doubt there 
are recurring references in the Koran to the 
mercy of God, and a mention of His readiness 

""Philosophy of Religion," iii, 179. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 45 

to forgive those who turn from their evil ways 
is not wanting. But the stereotyped phrases 
employed in these lines give no vital impres- 
sion of a God who is deeply concerned at heart 
to reach and to save the lost, and they are offset 
by a multitude of expressions which convey a 
contrary suggestion. What else is it than ar- 
bitrary almighty will that is sketched in such 
sentences as the following? "Verily those who 
misbelieve, it is the same to them if ye warn 
them, or if ye warn them not, they will not be- 
lieve. God has set a seal upon their hearts and 
on their hearing; and on their eyes is dim- 
ness." 16 "Whomsoever God wishes to guide, 
He expands his breast to Islam; but whom- 
soever He wishes to lead astray He makes 
his breast tight and straight; thus God sets 
His horror on those who do not believe." 17 
"We have created for hell many of the ginn 
and of mankind." 18 "God leads whom He 
will astray and guides whom he will." 19 
"Dost thou not see that we have sent the 
devils against the misbelievers to drive them 
on to sin." 20 "He pardons whom He pleases 
and torments whom He pleases." 21 Sen- 

18 Koran, Sura ii, 5, Palmer's translation. 

"vii, 125. 

18 vii, 178. 

18 xiv, 4. 

ao xix, 86. 

"xlviii, 14. 



46 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

tences of like tenor, to the number of half 
a hundred, could be cited from the Koran; 
and to add to the grimness of the picture which 
is given of an autocratic Deity more than a 
hundred pronouncements of hell torments 
against the unbelieving and disobedient are dis- 
tributed through the pages of the same authori- 
tative book. Indeed, that competent student 
of Mohammedanism, D. B. Macdonald, seems 
to speak with very fair warrant when he says : 
"Men are the slaves of Allah, His absolute 
property to do with as He wills.' ' 22 

Some modification of this portrayal of the 
divine disposition and attitude may have oc- 
curred in outcroppings of Mohammedan mys- 
ticism, especially in the form of Sufism, the 
headquarters of which were located in Persia. 
But in its affiliation with pantheism, this type 
of Mohammedanism has its own dubious fea- 
tures, and besides can assert no claim to ortho- 
doxy as against the tenor of the professedly in- 
fallible Koran. 

A predominant stress upon unsparing sov- 
ereignty naturally supports the inclination of 
the ardent devotee to appeal to the sword. It 
is no cause for surprise, therefore, to find in 
the Koran passages like the following: "When 

22 "The Vital Forces of Christianity and Islam," p. 222. Com- 
pare E. W. Hopkins, "History of Religions," p. 460. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 47 

ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off their 
heads, until ye have made a great slaughter 
among them ; and bind them in bonds, and either 
give them a free dismission afterwards, or ex- 
act a ransom until the war shall have laid down 
its arms. Verily if God pleased He could take 
vengeance on them without your assistance; 
but He commandeth you to fight His battles, 
that He may prove the one of you by the 
other. And as to those who fight in defense 
of God's true religion, God will not suffer their 
works to perish. He will lead them and dis- 
pose their hearts aright; and He will lead 
them into paradise." 23 Under modern condi- 
tions Mohammedan jurisprudence may have 
set bounds to the prerogative to declare a 
"holy war," an armed crusade against unbe- 
lievers, 24 but it is quite undeniable that if Mo- 
hammedan zealots should desire an excuse for 
unsheathing the sword against an unbelieving 
nation, they would not need to search the 
Koran with extra care in order to find agree- 
able texts. 

It is to be charged still further against Mo- 
hammedanism, that it falls below the standard 
of an ideal religion in being to so large a de- 

M xlvii, 4-7, Sale's translation. 

34 Macdonald, "Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence, 
and Constitutional Theory," pp. 55, 56. 



48 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

gree a religion of positive precepts rather than 
one of principles, and also by making no clear 
distinction between the religious and civil do- 
mains. In virtue of these characteristics it 
may have a certain efficiency in training rude 
nations; but it pays heavily for any such ad- 
vantage in the extent to which it puts obstruc- 
tions in the way of enlightened progress. At 
one point or another it gives the sanction of 
what is proclaimed to be an infallible revela- 
tion to distinctive features of an imperfect 
civilization. Polygamy, facility of divorce, 
and license for concubinage, with all the dis- 
paragement of woman's dignity which they in- 
volve, have unequivocal sanctions in the Koran. 
Hence liberal Mohammedans, who, so far as 
their own preferences are concerned might 
wish to modify unworthy customs, are held 
back from any vigorous and persistent effort 
at reform. 

Once more, Mohammedanism exposes itself 
to adverse comment by its materialistic repre- 
sentations of future reward. More than one 
passage in the Koran pictures the heavenly 
estate in thoroughly sensuous, not to say sen- 
sual terms, and conveys the impression that 
the prize to be looked for by the believer is 
a specially extensive and richly furnished 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS 49 

harem. No part in this establishment, it may 
be noted, is assigned to women of earthly an- 
tecedents. This did not follow from any doubt 
in the mind of the Arabian prophet about the 
title of women to immortality. He simply 
judged that he could most effectively stimu- 
late the hopes of the men who followed his 
standard by picturing as a prominent factor 
in their coming felicity groups of celestial 
maidens. 

In reviewing these systems of religion we 
have made it a point to consider only such fea- 
tures as clearly belong to them, and to avoid 
emphasizing things which may be rated as 
corrupting additions. To deal fairly with 
Christianity the same procedure must, of 
course, be observed in reviewing the subject- 
matter. It is to be judged by its essential con- 
tents, and not by perversions and accretions 
which contradict or obscure its proper essence. 
Taken in this sense it may confidently invite 
comparison with any religion which appeals to 
human faith. There is no need to disparage 
the systems which we have just sketched. The 
fair-minded Christian apologist will admit their 
merits. His contention will be simply, that 
Christianity matches their excellences, and by 



50 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

its rounded system of truth escapes the serious 
defects by which each one of them is marred. 
We hope to give credibility to this proposition 
in the following chapters and especially in the 
chapter which closes this treatise. 



CHAPTER II: CHRISTIANITY AS 

RELATED TO A HISTORICAL 

BASIS AND TO WRITTEN 

ORACLES 

/: The Need of a Historical Basis for a Successful 
Religion. 

Mere speculation cannot create a living and 
thriving religion. Philosophy may help to 
undermine a given religion, or may furnish 
concepts for the doctrinal construction carried 
on within a given religion; but it takes some- 
thing besides philosophy to found a religion 
which is able to claim a right of way in the 
world. The philosophers of Greece took away 
from the cultured some of the props to their 
faith in the old polytheism of the country; not 
one of them, however, gave a religion to the 
Greeks. The genius of a Plato and of an Aris- 
totle did not suffice for that. They had, in- 
deed, too much wisdom to attempt to make a 
religion out of a bundle of philosophical tenets. 

Such experiments as have been made with 

51 



52 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

abstract religions, or with religions put to- 
gether by mere intellectual industry in for- 
mulating and arranging truths, have fallen far 
short of the expectations of their authors. This 
was conspicuously the case with the Theophi- 
lanthropists, who figured in the era of the 
French Revolution. It was their plan, disown- 
ing special historical antecedents, to bring to- 
gether good teachings from all accessible 
sources, and to compound them into a rational 
and consistent system. As a matter of fact they 
selected very excellent maxims. But what 
were they able to accomplish with their fine 
compilation? Next to nothing. There was no 
power in it to capture and to hold men. Much 
the same results have attended similar ex- 
periments in more recent years, as may be seen 
by consulting the records of "Free Religious 
Associations" and "Theistic Societies." 

The trouble with a religion manufactured 
simply by intellectual industry in gathering, 
formulating, and combining truths, is that it 
does not fit the human subject. In almost all 
relations man is much more than pure intellect. 
The demands of his emotional life are ever com- 
ing to the front. A religion, therefore, that is 
fitted to maintain a permanent hold upon him 
must give good heed to these demands. It 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 5$ 

must have food for the heart. It must do* 
much more than offer a well-devised defini- 
tion of the divine; it must furnish apprehen- 
sible tokens that the divine is with man for his 
enrichment and blessing. 

This is as much as saying that, in order to 
make effective connections with any consider- 
able portion of the race, a religion must utilize 
a historic process. Facts, or supposed facts, 
concrete representations of how a superemi- 
nent being has come into communication with 
man, and wrought within the sphere of his 
life, constitute the most apprehensible tokens 
of the higher power that can be furnished. 
They appeal to the imagination, awaken feel- 
ing, and enkindle the hope of fellowship to a 
degree that is quite beyond the competency of 
abstract statements. A religion that can boast 
of any strength and permanency of life must 
be able to point to a sacred history. Of course, 
a sacred history which serves to embody reli- 
gious conceptions and to insure to them prac- 
tical vitality may have near to its beginning 
a meager content. Even such a content may 
be at that stage very serviceable as furnishing 
points of support whereby the incipient reli- 
gious faith and practice may gain a foothold 
in the world. The large and wealthy content* 



54 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

however, must be reached in due season if a 
victorious religion is to result. 

The religion adapted to win the largest and 
most permanent influence is the one whose 
sacred history has the richest content, and the 
content also which is best able to meet the 
tests of criticism which sooner or later are sure 
to be applied. Legend being taken in good 
faith as history may fulfill the office of history 
for a time by giving concrete representations 
of religious conceptions; but it cannot do so 
forever. This is not saying that a religion is 
necessarily discredited by the discovery that 
legend has a place in its oracles ; for the oracles 
may contain such high values that the element 
of legend shall detract little from them, even 
if it be rated as having no value in itself, which 
is not necessarily the case. The true state- 
ment is that legend must not have a controlling 
place, that in the trend and principal items of 
its sacred history a religion adapted to perma- 
nency must rest upon facts. 

//: The Largeness of the Historical Basis of 
Christianity 

In a very eminent sense Christianity is a 
religion of historical connections. If it be 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 55 

true that its principal content was a matter 
of revelation, it is equally true that the reve- 
lation, to a large extent, was imparted in and 
through a historic process. That process too 
was of notable extent. In the biblical point of 
view it reached across the breadth of two mil- 
lenniums ; and in any sober retrospect it cannot 
be assigned a lesser range. For, Christianity 
was in a sense germinant in the Hebrew dis- 
pensation. In its more essential features that 
whole dispensation was preparatory. Its inner 
movement was toward the religion of Christ, 
for which it provided an open door into the 
world and to which it contributed elements 
needed for completeness of content. 

It is interesting to note somewhat in detail 
how one stage of sacred history prepared for 
a succeeding, and how advance in general was 
dependent not merely upon personal inspira- 
tions, but on the unf oldments of history. Thus 
the Mosaic era had its antecedents in the patri- 
archal. Moses found an effective basis of reli- 
gious appeal to the people in the fact that he 
was able to proclaim the God of Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob, the God who had revealed 
His friendliness by coming into known asso- 
ciation with the forefathers. 

The historic movement of the Mosaic era 



56 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

was profoundly influential. On the one hand, 
by the great deliverances which were wrought 
for Israel that era impressed the thought of 
God as deliverer, and laid a deep foundation 
for a sense of obligation to Him and also of a 
special national vocation. On the other hand, 
it magnified the thought of God as the righte- 
ous lawgiver, and started the Israelites upon 
that course of training which led them to value 
righteousness and to exalt the conception of a 
righteous Kingdom beyond all antique ex- 
ample beside. 

The religious treasure of the Mosaic age 
was inherited by the prophetical era which pre- 
ceded and included the time of the Babylon- 
ish captivity. The great prophets were deeply 
penetrated with the ideas of God as deliverer 
and righteous lawgiver and with the thought 
of Israel as dedicated to God and destined to 
a high vocation. The tenacity with which they 
held these ideas prepared them to hope for 
Israel in spite of downfall. Indeed the very 
dismalness of the outlook became a motive with 
them to anticipate a specially signal interven- 
tion of God and revelation of His glorious 
sovereignty. Confident that the divine pur- 
pose written in the history of the nation must, 
in spite of appearances, be fulfilled, they looked 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 57 

beyond the scene of national ruin and penned 
those radiant expectations which we designate 
Messianic prophecy. Whatever degree of 
divine illumination they may have received, 
their prophesying was plainly based to a very 
considerable extent in the antecedent and con- 
temporary history. 

When we come to the inaugural era of Chris- 
tianity, as contained in the period of Christ's 
ministry, we find it no more than its prede- 
cessors, discarding historical antecedents. It 
is true that Christ spoke with an authority such 
as no teacher in Israel had ever assumed, and 
that a profound originality was characteristic 
of His teaching. But it is to be noticed that 
originality has a province not merely in open- 
ing up the absolutely new, but also in deepen- 
ing, widening and unifying truths to which a 
partial recognition may already have been 
given. As a thoughtful writer has remarked, 
Christ made over such truths into a "new or- 
ganic conception of human life in its relations 
to nature and to God, which, taken in its en- 
tirety, has no previous counterpart, and which 
indeed constitutes the greatest step that has 
ever been gained in the spiritual development 
of man." * Originality in this sense was not 

Edward Caird, "Evolution of Religion, II, 89, 90. 



58 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

incompatible with a large employment of reli- 
gious elements from the Old Testament sphere. 
In fact, the message of Christ had a distinct 
basis in the earlier dispensation. The Old 
Testament landscape lies in it, only the land- 
scape is illuminated by a new light. All that 
the Mosaic era and the subsequent centuries 
taught respecting the sanctity of divine com- 
mands and the worth of loyal obedience is im- 
plicit in the precepts of Christ. In this domain 
He had but to spiritualize and deepen an ideal 
which already had been powerfully enforced 
upon the conscience of Israel. His own por- 
trayal also of the Kingdom of God had most 
congenial antecedents in the lofty delineations 
of the prophets, and various passages from 
their forecasts of the Messiah were so apt that 
He could, and did, use them as means of imag- 
ing to the people His own vocation. Even in 
respect of such an item in His teaching as the 
doctrine of the immortal life, good foundations 
were ready to His hand in the Old Testament 
religion. That religion, it is true, says very 
little about immortality. Nevertheless, as 
Christ took pains to indicate, 2 it provides a 
firm ground for belief therein by virtue of its 
representation of man as a subject for ethical 

2 Matt, xxii, 31, 32 ; Mark xii, 26, 27 ; Luke xx, 37. 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 59 

fellowship with God. It requires but a step 
in reasoning to conclude that the subject of 
that order of fellowship is properly destined 
to immortal life. 

An historic basis for other elements in 
Christ's teaching could be adduced. But 
enough has been said to indicate that His mes- 
sage was not something brought into the world 
in an isolated fashion. It was congenially re- 
lated to historical antecedents, and thus had 
the virtue of adaptation in addition to the 
merits of its essential contents. Had not the 
message of Christ been in line with a historic 
development, it would have had no fair chance 
to obtain a lodgment in the world. No com- 
pany of men would have been found capable 
of receiving it or of understanding it suffi- 
ciently to transmit it in its integrity. As actu- 
ally given it both made connection with special 
historical conditions, and was so broad and 
complete in principle as to be able to fit all 
times and conditions. 

In another way the ministry of Christ illus- 
trates the dependence of religious truth upon 
the historic method for getting itself introduced 
and naturalized in the world. He delivered 
His message by deeds as well as by words. He 
lived the life, and wrought the works, and 



60 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

achieved the self-sacrifice most fitted to teach 
men the deepest spiritual verities, and to mir- 
ror to them for all time the thought and feeling 
and purpose of Him whom He taught His 
disciples to address as the Father in heaven. 
To instruct men in understandable terms, He 
made by the will of the Father, a special chap- 
ter in history. He incarnated truth and set 
it forth in the lineaments of a matchless life. 
In the closing biblical era, the apostolic, we 
meet with signal illustrations of the intercon- 
nection between historic movement and the 
revelation and enforcement of truth. Whence 
came the sustained enthusiasm, the marvelous 
spiritual energy of that era? To refer it to the 
working of the Holy Spirit is to give an ex- 
planation which the New Testament itself rec- 
ognizes. But evidently it is not the whole ex- 
planation. The Holy Spirit had always been 
in the world, and always was ready to improve 
opportunities for enlightening and quickening 
human spirits. How then account for so 
marked demonstrations in the apostolic era? 
Some consideration may be given to the idea 
of a divine choice of certain times to be in a 
special sense seasons of fruitage or of mani- 
fested spiritual efficiency; but the superior ex- 
planation may be regarded as lying in the 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 61 

special opportunities of the era. The life and 
teaching and death and resurrection of Christ 
were supremely adapted to be the ground of 
an extraordinary spiritual working. They 
only needed to be grasped in their true mean- 
ing in order powerfully to dominate the minds 
and hearts of the early disciples. Here lay the 
opportunity and function of the Holy Spirit. 
His office was to quicken the interior vision of 
the disciples in relation to the new world of 
spiritual verities in Christ — in New Testa- 
ment phrase, to take of the things of Christ 
and declare them unto the disciples. 3 Nothing 
more was necessary to make these men vic- 
torious over the world. In their sense of en- 
richment and their consciousness of union with 
Him, whom they knew as combining the most 
perfect human sympathy with the glory of the 
triumphant and exalted Lord, they possessed 
the spring of a joyful and tireless activity. 
Their lives became in a sense a continuation of 
the biography of Christ, even as one of the 
foremost in the apostolic group testified in the 
words, "I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ 
liveth in me." 4 No abstract ideal could have 
wrought thus. It was the penetrating convic- 
tion that Christ had actually proved Himself 

3 John xvi, 14. 
*Gal. ii, 20. 



62 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

to be the bearer of a new economy of grace 
and love which made new men of the primitive 
disciples, and qualified them to be the heralds 
of a new creation. Thus their faith and teach- 
ing and life had a distinct basis in historical 
facts. 

It is worth noting, moreover, that these dis- 
ciples, after all they had received from Christ, 
needed to be still further enlightened by the 
historic method. Even men upon whom the 
pentecostal fire had descended required fur- 
ther instruction, and gained it largely through 
the movement of events. This was clearly 
illustrated on the subject of the relation of 
Christianity to Judaism. How was this mat- 
ter expounded to the minds of the apostles? 
How did they come to the clear conviction of 
the universality of Christianity and of the 
opportunity of all men to enter into the pos- 
session of its riches without being required to 
pass through the gateway of Judaism? It is 
quite certain that whatever else may have 
aided in bringing them to this conviction, the 
march of events was a principal agency in the 
matter. Christianity proved itself to be too 
much alive to be held by Jewish restrictions. 
Gentiles in one and another district, who had 
never subscribed to the ceremonial law, were 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 63 

taken captive by the new faith and furnished 
unmistakable evidence of sharing in its proper 
spiritual fruits. Thus the logic of facts was 
brought to bear in an effective manner. Di- 
vine leadership in the field of events wrought 
with divine inspirations in the minds of the 
apostles to bring them to a rounded interpre- 
tation of Christianity. 

We see, then, that to a very large extent the 
inestimable treasure of Christian truth has 
been brought into the world and made the pos- 
session of men through a historic process. 
This conclusion, it should be observed, in no 
wise shuts out the supernatural ; it implies only 
that the supernatural power, instead of acting 
in an abrupt and isolated way, is accustomed 
to choose a method which respects, as far as 
possible, the organic connections of events. It 
assuredly contributes to the fabric of human 
history. It makes a history into a sacred his- 
tory. But it does not, so to speak, exclude the 
natural threads and the natural processes of 
weaving; rather it skillfully unites with them 
the threads which glorify the fabric and give 
to it a divine value. We may say, indeed, that 
it is the false supernatural, the imagined inter- 
vention of the higher powers, which seems 



64 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

heedless of connection with ordinary instru- 
mentalities and activities. 



777: The Rounded Character Secured to the Bibli- 
cal Revelation by the Extraordinary Com- 
pleteness of Its Historical Basis 

The wide sweep of the historic process which 
lies back of the message of Christian truth has 
an obvious connection with the completeness 
of the Christian system and with our confi- 
dence therein. It is the extent of the process 
which has made the Christian Bible a book of 
such wonderful breadth. By nothing less 
could so great a variety and balance of factors 
have been secured, or so great richness and 
manifoldness in the illustration of truth. The 
Bible in its actual comprehensiveness could not 
have been given to the world by any one 
human mind or by any single age. The best 
that one agent of revelation could do, within 
the limits of an earthly lifetime, would be to 
set forth the supreme things rightly coordi- 
nated with one another — the central content 
of faith and the governing principles of con- 
duct. To bring in the auxiliary truths and to 
secure fullness of illustration the differing 
talents of many gifted servants of God and 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 65 

the advantages of a great variety of historical 
situations needed to be utilized. A book like 
the Koran might have been compiled by a sin- 
gle hand, though not without drawing from 
already existing stores. But who can imagine 
a single hand writing the Bible? 

Even if we glance simply at the Old Testa- 
ment we are struck with the comprehensive- 
ness of our sacred book. There is the litera- 
ture of law, well fitted to nurture the sense of 
duty, to build up religious habits, and to for- 
tify against disintegrating contact with alien 
systems. There is the contrasted literature of 
prophecy, more subjective in tone, emphasiz- 
ing the interior disposition as the heart of re- 
ligion, reaching out toward universal princi- 
ples, and giving scope to the progressive ele- 
ments in the religious life of Israel. There is 
historical narrative, full of object-lessons in 
morals and piety. There is the wisdom litera- 
ture, giving the results of studious reflection 
on man and the world in the form of proverb 
or poem. There is finally the literature of 
devotion, a collection of lyrics which one may 
say without exaggeration mirrors the heights 
and depths of personal and national experi- 
ence for a thousand years. Thus types 
broadly contrasted, but at the same time mu- 



66 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

tually supplementary, make up the Old Testa- 
ment and give to it a character of peculiar 
comprehensiveness. 

If we extend the view so as to include the 
New Testament we shall greatly enlarge the 
illustration of the sweep of the biblical revela- 
tion and of the way in which it secures com- 
pleteness through variety and contrast. As 
respects the relation between the two Testa- 
ments, a broad contrast undoubtedly is to be 
recognized. But the contrast is one which 
rather confirms than denies the divine office 
of the Hebraic dispensation. It is, in large 
part, the contrast between the glimmerings of 
the approaching morn and the clear shining of 
the full daylight. If there is any contradic- 
tion between the earlier and the later revela- 
tion, it is on points which the earlier, by its 
own advance, tended to revise in the direction 
of the later, even as Christ declared that he 
came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets 
but to fulfill, that is, to achieve their ideal 
meaning and purpose. 

Taking still further the New Testament by 
itself we may readily see how different types 
have supplemented one another, and so minis- 
tered to the wealth and completeness of the 
revelation. On the one hand, we have the 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 67 

Synoptical Gospels, presenting the life of 
Christ in an essentially objective style. On 
the other hand, we have an interpreting Gos- 
pel, presenting the person and the life of 
Christ as they were apprehended by a mind 
richly dowered with mystical depth and fervor. 
We have the Petrine type of teaching, with its 
call to courageous testimony and patient en- 
durance for the name of Christ, its predomi- 
nant stress on consecrated practical activity. 
We have the Pauline type with its profound 
emphasis upon the reconciliation freely pro- 
vided by God's grace, having its pledge and 
objective ground in the death of Christ, and 
waiting to be apprehended by an act of living 
faith. We have a supplement to Paul's teach- 
ing in the eloquent epistle to the Hebrews with 
its picture of Christ's reconciling office as 
transcending His earthly ministry and as 
being perpetually fulfilled in the heavenly 
sanctuary. We have finally the Johannine 
type, with its stress upon a mystical union with 
God, a fellowship realized through love and 
introducing its sub j ect forthwith to an eternal 
life. 

Now who would not say that the biblical sys- 
tem would suffer loss from the elimination of 
any one of the types or forms of teaching 



68 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

which have been mentioned? Plainly not one 
of them could be spared without detriment. 
And so we see the grand utility, the veritable 
necessity, of the age-long process which gave 
opportunity for these various types to be de- 
veloped and to gain a lodgment in human un- 
derstanding and appreciation. The Bible is 
what it is because the patient God wrought 
through many centuries, by means of provi- 
dences as well as by inspirations, to impress 
His message upon the elect spirits of the race, 
and at length added to all other expedients the 
one great expedient of sending His Son to 
teach and to illustrate the perfect truth of the 
divine kingdom. 

IV: The Rational Estimate of the Dependence of 
Christianity on Written Oracles 

In determining the indebtedness of the 
Christian religion to a great historic process, 
as a means of making known and illustrating 
divine truth, we have not determined precisely, 
its relation to the Bible. The Bible differs, at 
least in large part, from the primary revela- 
tion, much as the record of a communication 
differs from the original communication. 
Revelation was before the Bible. The truths 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 69 

which adorn the pages of the Holy Book were 
in the minds and hearts of its authors before 
they were put into written form. The great 
central disclosure through Christ had a place 
in the world years before a single Gospel was 
written. The Bible is simply the standard 
record of revealed truth, the standard compen- 
dium of the products of the revealing process. 
No one can deny the dependence of Christian- 
ity upon the revealing process. It could not 
have existed in its proper character apart from 
that. But what about its relation to the stand- 
ard compendium, a particular set of written 
oracles, the commonly recognized collection of 
biblical books, into which the principal fruits 
of the revealing process have been gathered? 
Is strict dependence to be affirmed, or are we 
at liberty to assume that Christian truth, hav- 
ing once gotten into human consciousness, is 
very little beholden, for continued subsistence 
and propagation, to any set of written oracles ? 
In answering this important question the 
thoughtful student will find reasons against 
taking an extreme position on either side. It 
will not seem to him permissible to make small 
account of the dependence of Christianity upon 
written oracles. It sounds, indeed, rather plau- 
sible when one argues with the celebrated Les- 



70 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

sing, that the truths which a divinely-guided 
movement has brought into the world have be- 
come the property of the human mind, have 
passed over in large part from being truths 
of revelation and have become truths of rea- 
son, and thus are so well intrenched that there 
is no special occasion to revert to written or- 
acles in order to be assured of their claims. 
Such reasoning, however, overlooks two things. 
In the first place it does not sufficiently regard 
the liability of any system that is put into the 
hands of men to drift away from its own prin- 
ciples or to run into onesided developments. 
History informs us by multiplied examples 
that a people which would pursue the path of 
nobility and success has abundant occasion to 
keep in vivid recollection its best traditions, to 
cherish reverently the standards which it has 
evolved in its most creative epochs. Only by 
the use of the same method can religious soci- 
ety be safeguarded against declension and kept 
in the way of a sure progress. In more than 
one instance the later stages of a religion have 
stood in unfavorable contrast with the earlier. 
The lessons of history, therefore, as well as the 
reason of the case, teach that Christianity, in 
order to be secure of a normal development, 
needs often to revert to its originals, and to con- 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 71 

template truth in the balanced presentation of 
it which has been given in the Bible as the rec- 
ord of a wide-reaching and marvelously rich 
historical process. 

In the second place the reasoning in question 
errs by not recognizing the incompetency of 
abstract truths to take the place of concrete 
representations, or truths set in the forms of 
real history. Were one to write in condensed 
prose, he could put into a few pages the sub- 
stance of all the history, ethics, and religion 
contained in the immortal poems of Homer. 
A like space would suffice for penning the 
moral and religious ideas contained in the 
writings of Shakespeare. But no sane man 
will say that the world could afford to close up 
the Homeric poems and the Shakespearean 
dramas, and to edify itself with a bundle or two 
of outlines and abstractions gathered from 
them. No more can the world accept a list of 
bare precepts and dogmas in place of its mas- 
terpieces in sacred literature. The mighty He- 
brew drama, with its long list of scenes from 
the call of Abraham to the preaching of John 
the Baptist, with its sustained intensity, and 
with its wonderful interplay of light and shad- 
ow, impresses religious truth as no purely in- 
tellectual formulas, however well chosen, could 



72 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

impress them. The gospel narratives have a 
perennial charm and a spiritual potency which 
no prosaic statement of the main truths for 
which they stand can ever approach. As well 
make a definition of music answer the purpose 
of a heavenly strain, or a mere outline subserve 
the purpose of the finished painting, or a physi- 
ological description take the place of the real- 
ized ideal of human beauty, as to suppose that 
any abstract statements about man or God 
can fulfill the practical office of the life-story of 
Christ. As was observed at the beginning of 
this chapter, a religion can make effective con- 
nections with men only by utilizing the his- 
toric form. The oracles, therefore, which con- 
tain the sacred history of Christianity cannot 
be regarded as ever destined in the course of 
earthly history to fulfill an inferior function. 

On the other hand, a measure of caution is 
needed against proceeding to the opposite ex- 
treme and taking the dependence of Chris- 
tianity upon the Bible in a too narrow and 
technical sense. We run into exaggeration if 
we suppose there is an obligation to set a rigid 
limit to approved thinking in the letter of the 
Scriptures. In taking that position we should 
go contrary to the example of the Scriptures 
themselves; for, the later books in the sacred 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 73 

collection do not recognize the demand for a 
close undeviating conformity to the earlier. 
Granting, as we well may with all heartiness, 
that ruling principles for all conduct are con- 
tained in the Scriptures, we are in no wise shut 
out from the conclusion that it is the preroga- 
tive of Christian society to advance to one and 
another new, or relatively new, application of 
those principles. Advances of this kind have 
been made. From the teachings of the New 
Testament, for example, inductions have been 
drawn respecting the impropriety of human 
slavery which the early Christians were not 
prepared to draw. Improved views on some 
other lines may be possible. To confess this 
much is to honor rather than to dishonor the 
Bible, since it serves to emphasize the fruit- 
bearing capacity of the great principles to 
which the Bible invites perpetual attention. 
Successive generations are needed to bring out 
all the good which is locked up in those prin- 
ciples. 

Again Christianity is not so limited to the 
Bible that its advocates have no function to 
criticize anything within biblical limits. The 
very nature of the Bible would lead us to ex- 
pect more or less matter for criticism. Essen- 
tially it is the record of a great historic process 



74 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

by which the character, will, and purpose of 
God have been made manifest. It records a 
progress in the unfoldment and inculcation of 
truth. Now progress of this sort naturally in- 
volves an element of criticism. The advanced 
stage contains an implicit judgment on one 
or another phase of the earlier stage as falling 
short of its standard. In fact there is some- 
thing like criticism of Scripture within the 
Scriptures. Various sayings of Christ imply 
that the standard to which His followers are 
to be held is higher than that which might be 
drawn from the Old Testament, and is to be 
regarded as supplanting the latter. What 
Christ began to do the spirit of Christ in His 
disciples must continue to do in some measure, 
unless it is to be debarred from its office by 
arbitrary and inflexible presuppositions. Edu- 
cation up to the highest level of the Bible 
by natural consequence prepares one to dis- 
cover an element of imperfection in some lower 
level. 

Of course the devout student in virtue of his 
profound reverence will not care to spend his 
time in search for flaws in the Bible, any more 
than he will care to scan a face divinely beau- 
tiful just for the sake of discovering an imper- 
fection. But suppose that in his perusal of 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 75 

the sacred pages he actually comes across an 
imperfection. Will he need to be stumbled by 
the discovery? Assuredly not. For, what is 
to be asked of the Bible? Not that it should 
show no traces of the human channels through 
which its subject-matter has been transmitted. 
Not that it should run on the same level all the 
way through. What is to be asked of the Bible 
is, that the trend and outcome of its teaching 
should be such as to leave us, in all essential 
particulars, with a perfect ethical and religious 
standard. What matters it, if some errors are 
found in items only externally related to the 
purpose of the biblical revelation? They may 
be rated as belonging to the mere scaffolding 
incidental to the erection of the building 
proper. What matters it though some errors 
be found that have somewhat of a moral or 
religious import? If in the total movement 
of revelation they are clearly offset, cancelled, 
or corrected, we are left in spite of them with 
the complete standard, and they become sim- 
ply memorials of the limited vision of this or 
that human agent in the extended line of those 
who have been utilized in preparing the biblical 
books. The thing of supreme consequence is 
to have the perfect standard ultimately re- 
vealed and set forth with adequate clearness. 



76 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

And this is accomplished in the biblical revela- 
tion. The standard which no progress can ever 
leave behind is presented in that revelation. 
It stands forth conspicuous, exalted, glorious 
as a mount of transfiguration. The truths 
which come to a crowning manifestation in the 
character, work, and teaching of Jesus Christ 
are good enough to rule the most distant gen- 
eration of men, good enough to shape forever 
the fellowship of God's immortal children. 

The excessively technical view of the Bible 
makes needless trouble. No one would think 
of attempting to secure a stable equilibrium 
for a pyramid by turning it upon its apex. 
No more should one think of resting the cause 
of the Bible upon the accuracy of every detail 
of the Bible. No one when walking within 
the walls of a great temple, should he observe 
that a little chipping had been taken from this 
or that massive pillar, would be made appre- 
hensive of the downfall of the temple. No 
more should one be made apprehensive of the 
collapse of the great biblical edifice of truth by 
observing a token of errancy in one or another 
secondary or surface matter. The way of peace 
and assurance for the Christian believer is not 
the way of faith in the necessary perfection of 
every item in the Bible, but rather of confl- 



CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORICAL BASIS 77 

dence in the greatness, sufficiency, and finality 
of the ethical and religious system in which the 
biblical revelation eventuates. 

An additional reason for not insisting on 
a high technical theory of the Bible is to be 
found in the undeniable facts respecting the 
biblical canon, or the proper compass of the 
sacred volume, the list of books to be approved. 
Who knows beyond all question what books 
should be included? Has any one on the face 
of the earth been favored with an unequivocal 
divine decree on the subject? In no single 
century has Christendom been completely 
agreed on the precise dimensions which should 
be given to the canon. A margin of conflicting 
opinion has persisted to this hour. That it 
has done so is not of vital consequence, since 
there is a firm consensus relative to the accept- 
ance of all the more significant and important 
books. To find a way to a complete consensus 
seems to be out of the question. One may in- 
deed subscribe to the dogma of ecclesiastical in- 
fallibility and so take as a finality the decision 
of the Council of Trent, which included in the 
Old Testament over half a dozen books, 5 which 
Protestant judgment for the most part has 
continuously rejected. But how persuade 

6 To wit, Tobith, Judith, Wisdom, Ecelesiasticus, Baruch, First 
Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and additions to Esther and Daniel. 



78 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

those of dissenting views to adopt this short- 
hand method of settling a question of fact. In 
the face of the historical record insurmountable 
difficulties close the way to any such result. 
So the best that can possibly be done is for 
piety and scholarship to work together to 
establish an approximate settlement of the 
canon. 

Now observe the necessary bearing of this 
conclusion. If every book, in its entirety, 
which is in the Bible cannot be certified to have 
a right to be there, evidently it cannot right- 
fully be asserted that every book in its every 
part is inerrant on the ground that inerrancy 
is the peculiar distinction of the Bible. What 
perchance has no right to be in the Bible at all, 
cannot claim on the score of mere physical jux- 
taposition to share in the perfection which is 
postulated of the Bible. Uncertainty as to the 
limits of the canon mocks every attempt to 
set the actual collection of books above the lia- 
bility of being tinged with errancy. Instead 
of cleaving to the ultra-technical theory of the 
Bible, it is the wise course to stress the ethico- 
religious wealth which makes the marvelous 
book able and worthy to take captive the minds 
and hearts of men. 



CHAPTER III: THE PLACE OF 

JESUS, THE CHRIST, IN 

CHRISTIANITY 

I: The Realization of the Moral Ideal in Christ 

If the practical efficiency of a religion depends 
upon its possessing a historical character, the 
prime demand of the highest and most efficient 
religion may reasonably be regarded as the 
union of the ideal and the real in a historic per- 
sonality. This is what Christianity claims for 
itself as an unique distinction. It affirms that 
it has not merely an unblemished abstract ideal, 
but the ideal actualized on the field of history, 
and thus made apprehensible and potent. 
Whatever else Christ may be in the point of 
view of Christianity, He is certainly the moral 
ideal. 

A moral ideal may be regarded both nega- 
tively and positively. Affirmed of Christ in 
the former sense it denotes His freedom from 
all contamination and guilt, His perfect moral 
purity or sinlessness. If asked to demon- 
strate that Christ was distinguished by this 

79 



80 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

entire purity we shall doubtless be obliged to 
answer, that strict demonstration is here out 
of the question. A historical fact of this kind 
is in the nature of the case incapable of abso- 
lute proof. What is to be asked for is a Weight 
of evidence so decided as to induce rational as- 
sent. This much of evidence, it is believed, 
can be produced. 

1. The impression made by the life of 
Christ is worth citing in favor of faith in his 
freedom from sin. This impression may be 
traced in connection with three different par- 
ties. It is clearly evinced, in the first place, 
in the testimony given by the primitive dis- 
ciples, or at least in declarations which may 
be regarded as certainly based upon their tes- 
timony. 1 The whole body of the apostolic lit- 
erature may be said to reflect the unhesitating 
conviction that Christ was without sin. Paul 
in writings composed within twenty-five or 
thirty years from the death of Christ, treats the 
truth of His sinlessness as a commonplace of 
Christian thought. 

As sharing in the apostolic impression we 
may mention next the vast company of those 
who in a serious spirit have brought them- 
selves face to face with the image of Christ 

1 John vii, 18, viii, 29 ; 1 John iii, 5 ; 1 Peter ii, 22 ; Heb. iv, 15, 
wii, 26 ; 2 Cor. v, 21 ; Rom. viii, 3. 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 81 

which is reflected in the Gospels. They have 
found that the contemplation of that historic 
figure has been more effective than aught be- 
sides to make them feel the exceeding sinful- 
ness of their sins. Thus their experience has 
powerfully supported the conviction that in 
meeting the Christ they have met one whom the 
stains and compromises of sin never touched. 

Supplementing the force of this vivid im- 
pression in the hearts of the great multitude 
of earnest Christians there is the verdict of men 
whose names are associated with high achieve- 
ments in modern philosophy and criticism. If 
not always rendered in perfectly explicit 
terms that verdict is certainly not contradic- 
tory of the apostolic conviction and of the or- 
dinary Christian consciousness on this theme. 
In spite of all their venturesome excursions, 
the philosophy and criticism of the Occident 
have, since the days of Kant, admitted for the 
major part the propriety of viewing Christ as 
the realized moral ideal. The contrary judg- 
ment would scarcely be looked for except 
among bizarre and skeptical thinkers. 

2. A very important evidence confronts us 
in the unique fact that no trace of a conscious- 
ness of sin is discoverable in the entire revela- 
tion which Christ has given of Himself. No 



82 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

note of repentance can be found in His record. 
Not the slightest suggestion is furnished that 
He ever needed to bring into the presence of 
the Father a word of apology. In any other 
earthly biography a high order of saintliness 
is seen to be won through profound experiences 
of contrition. The shadow of unworthiness 
never entirely disappears even from the path 
which ascends into the light of God's counte- 
nance. How, then, shall we explain the fact 
that the consciousness of Jesus was entirely 
free from this shadow? If the exemption was 
not due to the actual possession of a sinless 
character it was an eccentricity which natur- 
ally would have borne fruit in practical aber- 
rations. Piety without repentance, in one who 
needed to repent, would have been such a 
counterfeit as could not well avoid exposing 
its artificiality and worthlessness. Accord- 
ingly the profound impression of moral worth 
which comes from every part of the record of 
Christ affords a very positive assurance that 
His unconsciousness of sin was not chargeable 
to any self-deception. 

3. The spiritual freedom characteristic of 
Christ in divine and human relations argues 
that, as He was not hardened by the guilt of 
sin, so He was exempt from its fetters. The 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 83 

tone of His life was ever that of mastery as 
opposed to unsuccessful striving. "He stands 
free in the presence of law and tradition, of 
friend and foe, of the world and the Father, 
whom He obeys not otherwise than in perfect 
freedom. Everywhere He feels and manifests 
Himself as the Son of the house who is free, 
and makes free in opposition to the slaves of 
sin." 2 

4. The encouragement which Christ gave to 
His Disciples to approach God in His name and 
confidently to expect benefits when asking in 
His name, 3 is indicative of a pronounced con- 
sciousness of entire harmony with the Father. 
It is not conceivable that one destitute of the 
assurance that He was the well-beloved Son 
of the heavenly Father could invite men to 
such heart-reliance upon Himself in their ap- 
proaches to God. At any rate, if we do not 
suppose in Christ a luminous understanding 
of His position as enshrined in the compla- 
cent love of God, we must charge to Him a 
high stretch of fanciful enthusiasm — a thing 
most contrary, as will be shown presently, to 
the extraordinary mental and ethical balance 
exhibited by the Master. 

5. Uniting with the foregoing elements in 

2 Van Oosterzee, "Dogmatics," p. 500. 

s Matt, xviii, 19, 20 ; John xiv, 13, xv, 16, xvi, 23, 26. 



84 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

a harmonious picture of a sinless personality 
we have Christ's claim to be the judge of all 
men. Where should the consciousness of such 
an office reside except in the spirit of Him who 
was clearly assured that there was no ground 
of adverse judgment against Himself? Ac- 
cordingly the perfectly unwavering confidence 
of Christ that in some high sense all men must 
answer for their conduct at His tribunal makes 
a specially forceful evidence. By all the war- 
rant we have for imputing to Him a high de- 
gree of sobriety and self-knowledge we are in- 
vited to believe that sin had no point of at- 
tachment in Him. 

Historical grounds for challenging the sin- 
lessness of Christ are of trivial consequence. 
They are properly met by a reasonable sup- 
position as to the tone and manner which ac- 
companied His words, by a consideration of 
the singular authority which belonged to Him 
in virtue of His extraordinary mission, or by 
a due estimate of the occasions of righteous 
wrath which were presented in the course of 
His ministry. His words respecting the Phari- 
sees were undoubtedly very severe. But they 
were deserved. The Pharisaism of that day 
stood for an extravagant formalism and spirit 
of exclusiveness. It deserved to be smitten 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 85 

on its own account, and the example of its 
chastisement was needed to warn every com- 
pany of men disposed haughtily to arrogate a 
monopoly of spiritual goods that such a thing 
is an abomination in the sight of God. The 
intense antipathy of Christ toward Pharisaic 
self-righteousness must be regarded as per- 
fectly normal. It was, too, in no wise contra- 
dictory to gentleness. The scorching rebuke 
did not testify to absence of love. The Phari- 
sees were doubtless included among the chil- 
dren of that disobedient Jerusalem over which 
the Son of Man pronounced His compassion- 
ate lament. ^ 

Regarded on its positive side the moral ideal 
implies a character rounded out by high quali- 
ties subsisting in balanced relation with one 
another. That in Christ there was an unique 
balance of the purest and loftiest personal 
traits must strike every unbiased reader of the 
gospel story. 4 

1. We notice in Him a peculiar union of 
meekness and strength. He called Himself 
meek and lowly in heart, and the description 
seems to have been justified. Until early man- 
hood He remained in subjection to parental 

* On this point the author deems it advisable to reproduce 
largely from the exposition given in his "System of Christian Doc- 
trine," Methodist Book Concern, New York. 



86 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

authority, taking no advantage of any presage 
of His Messianic dignity which may have 
found a place in His consciousness. He en- 
tered upon His ministry by submitting to a 
consecratory rite at the hands of one who 
himself declared that he was not worthy to 
unloose the latchet of His shoe. Void of every 
trace of aristocratic superiority and exclusive- 
ness in His bearing, He was ever ready for 
kindly association with the most wretched and 
despised. While He accepted unavoidable 
publicity, He repelled ostentation. To work 
marvels merely as marvels was utterly repug- 
nant to His spirit. He would not respond to 
calls for mere display. Compassion and love 
were the ruling motives in all His mighty 
works. 

But with this meekness what perfect steadi- 
ness of purpose and unconquerable strength 
were manifested by Christ. In His speech 
there was an air of singular authority. With 
all His reverence toward the Old Testament 
He did not shun to mount above some of its 
precedents and set them aside by a word of 
higher command. While He had the mag- 
nanimity and wisdom to accommodate Himself 
to the age in all respects that did not hazard 
the permanent interests of truth, He was per- 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 87 

fectly resolute to march against the age, to 
confront its frown, its mockery, and its homi- 
cidal hatred, where otherwise the assertion of 
principle must have been curtailed. Through 
all varieties of circumstance He bore the same 
lofty consciousness of a special vocation to 
mankind, and claimed an allegiance to which 
every earthly tie must be made secondary. 
Equally remote from crude force and from all 
inclination to compromise principle, He af- 
forded the supreme instance of the reconcili- 
ation of meekness and might. 

2. Christ exemplified the union of com- 
passion for the sinner with sharp intolerance 
for sin. This is a combination which lies quite 
beyond ordinary abilities. Almost every man 
who gives a loose rein to a compassionate in- 
terest in the sinful and the abandoned is very 
apt to be driven into making unguarded al- 
lowances for them; and not only that, he is in 
danger, as respects inward feeling, of falling 
below the standard of that intense repulsion 
which ought to be felt toward all unright- 
eousness. On the other hand, if he endeavors to 
pay the full debt of genuine hatred toward 
sin, he is liable to repel the sinner also, and to 
lose the attitude of the brother in that of the 
censor. It does not appear to have been so 



88 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

with Christ. Certainly we cannot imagine a 
being more tenderly compassionate toward the 
sinful, more warmly sympathetic toward the 
unworthy who were ready to strive for better 
things. He could fitly apply to Himself the 
prophetic picture of one who should not break 
the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. 

But at the same time it is not possible to 
imagine a being more intolerant of sin than 
was Christ. He goes back of the outward act 
and raises a judgment-seat over the inward 
motion and disposition. He arraigns intem- 
perate and unfounded anger as approximate to 
the guilt of murder. He brands the unchaste 
desire which follows the glance as having al- 
ready the stain of adultery. As if He would 
project something of His own antipathy to 
evil into His disciples, He exhorts them in 
words of burning intensity, "If thy right eye 
causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out and cast 
it from thee. And if thy right hand causeth 
thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from 
thee." 5 

3. We observe in Christ a remarkable 
union of spirituality with kindly contact with 
the world. No one can think of His life except 
as profoundly unworldly in tone. It seems 

6 Matt, v, 29, 30. 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 89 

scarcely to have been touched at all by the or- 
dinary ambitions of men. His whole teaching 
indicates how lightly He trod upon the face 
of this temporal world, and how truly the 
spiritual realm was His real home. We see 
this in his exhortation to lay up treasure in 
heaven, to renounce anxious cares about the 
stores which the morrow may bring, to regard 
well the danger of losing the life by saving it 
merely to temporal weal, and to estimate the 
recording of one's name in heaven as the su- 
preme cause for rejoicing. 

Nevertheless, the life of Christ gives no im- 
pression of asceticism or monastic austerity. 
We never see Him standing with a scourge 
over the body; He heals instead of mutilat- 
ing. We never hear Him denouncing the ma- 
terial world as unclean and allied with Satan. 
He treats it rather as the workmanship of His 
Father's hands, and uses it as a book of di- 
vinity from which to read off to His hearers 
beautiful and comforting messages of truth. 
He subordinates undoubtedly the temporal 
world to the spiritual, but He stands in a re- 
lation of harmony with the former as well as 
with the latter. In His spirit and way of 
thinking a solution is afforded to that most 



90 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

difficult problem, the reconciliation of the two 
worlds. 

4. In Christ we find deep human sensibility 
blended with elements of personal grandeur. 
Many pages of the Gospels show that His 
chosen title, "Son of Man," was entirely ap- 
propriate. The spring of human sympathies 
in Him was deep and abundant. So testify 
His affectionate discourses to His disciples, 
His embracement and blessing of little chil- 
dren, His compassion for the fasting multi- 
tude, His intimacy with the family at Bethany, 
His tears at the tomb of Lazarus, His desire 
that chosen friends should be near Him in the 
time of His agony in the garden, and His ten- 
der words spoken from the cross commending 
His mother to the care of a faithful disciple. 

But with all this brotherliness and human 
sensibility, how far He stood above the ordi- 
nary plane, in religious confidence, in conscious 
dignity, and in the grandeur of His personal 
outlook! Without seeming effort He touched 
the highest things of the divine kingdom. He 
talked as though He veritably knew the Father 
and by right of position and nature was the 
channel for revealing Him to men. He in- 
vited men to a confidence in Himself which 
implied the most undoubting assurance that 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 91 

right relation to Himself could mean nothing 
less than heirship to the best gifts which God 
has to bestow. He viewed the future with a 
perfectly triumphant expectation, as though 
already He realized that He held in His 
hand the scepter over its issues. Though 
on the way to crucifixion, without a soldier or 
statesman in His retinue, He looked with se- 
rene confidence toward the throne of a king- 
dom, before whose extent and glory all earthly 
dominion sinks into insignificance. 

It cannot be doubted that a union of hu- 
man sensibility with some degree of grandeur 
in the inner life belongs to the moral ideal as 
enshrined in an earthly career. At the same 
time it is not so clear that the full height of 
self-consciousness revealed in Christ can be 
regarded as unequivocally demanded by that 
ideal taken by itself. This fact, however, can- 
not be regarded as opposing the claim for 
Christ which our argument strives to establish. 
The unique balance in Him of the finest human 
traits so testifies to His mental clearness and 
sobriety that it becomes the rational alternative 
to believe that the high range of consciousness 
which He exemplified, instead of savoring in 
any wise of intemperate enthusiasm, was ac- 
cordant with truth and fact. Moreover, it is 






92 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

to be noticed that one so singular in character 
as to be the moral ideal might properly be ex- 
pected to be so singular also in vocation and 
in special divine relations as to transcend in 
His inner vision and experience the ordinary- 
range of human consciousness. The appear- 
ance of such a personality in a sinful race can- 
not reasonably be regarded as an accident. 
His coming must have been to realize a lofty 
divine purpose. His exceptional consciousness 
but matches the exceptional vocation, to the 
fact of which His very appearing testifies. 

We find then the positive, as well as the 
negative conditions of the moral ideal to have 
been wonderfully met in Christ. In His stain- 
less and rounded perfection He stands forth 
as the incomparable marvel of human history. 

17: Christ as Teacher or Revealer 

Joining the thought of the moral ideal with 
that of a special vocation we come to the second 
distinctive character in Christ which appears, 
that of the authoritative teacher, revealer, or 
interpreter of spiritual verities. As an en- 
dowment with poetical sentiment enables a 
man to be peculiarly responsive to the mes- 
sage which nature offers, so the possession of 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 93 

holy character by Christ qualified Him in a 
peculiar degree to receive the message of the 
spiritual world. As the ideal citizen He was 
specially prepared to understand the prin- 
ciples of the kingdom. As the ideal Son, per- 
fectly submitted to the will of the Father and 
perfectly sympathetic with His purposes, He 
was uniquely qualified to apprehend the mind 
of the Father, and to see clearly the directions 
of His designs in connection with mankind. 
But this was not all. As was noted above, the 
appearance of the exceptional personality can- 
not well be taken as anything less than a dis- 
tinct sign of an exceptionally lofty and im- 
portant vocation. Now the fact of an , ex- 
traordinary vocation certainly suggests, if it 
does not require, the thought of an extraor- 
dinary communication from the divine side. 
It is perfectly consonant with the conclusion 
that Christ was called to be the light of the 
world, and to mark out for all time the path- 
way of the true life, to suppose that superior 
sources of illumination were vouchsafed to 
Him. If we are to give any place to the idea 
that divine light has shone into the minds of 
the prophets and leaders of the race, we can 
but conclude that in an extraordinary meas- 
ure divine light was vouchsafed to the Christ 



94 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

who had the loftiest and most important voca- 
tion to fulfill. We may think of Him, there- 
fore, as qualified for the office of revealer, not 
merely by the high range of intuition which 
naturally belonged to His holy manhood, but 
by a full measure of communication from the 
resources of divine wisdom. The New Testa- 
ment writers recognize this point of view, as 
for instance in the statement that the Father 
showeth the Son all things that Himself 
doeth. 6 

In noting the distinctive features of Christ's 
teaching we may appropriately emphasize the 
close and harmonious relation which it affirms 
between the demands of morality or ethics and 
the requirements of religion. 7 The Gospels 
emphatically exclude the notion that the latter 
can ever be accepted as a substitute for the 
former, or that any kind of so-called religious 
performance can take the place of honesty and 
kindness in dealing with one's fellows. Stress 
upon the ethical appears at every turn. It 
appears in blessings pronounced upon the 
merciful and the peace -makers ; in the strong 
condemnation uttered against anger and in- 
temperate railing; in the requirement to be 

6 John v, 20. 

7 We use in this connection nearly the same terms as we have 
employed in our "New Testament Theology" (pp. 68-70). The 
Macmillan Company, New York. 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 95 

first reconciled, so far as possible, with one's 
brother, before approaching God's altar; in 
the demand for a chastity which imposes full 
restraint upon the thoughts and the desires ; in 
the inculcation of a charity and good will, 
which are broad and earnest enough to go out 
not merely to friends but to enemies also; in 
the instruction that consistent and effectual 
prayer for divine forgiveness must be accom- 
panied by the spirit of forgiveness towards 
those who have trespassed against us; in in- 
sistence upon transparent sincerity and single- 
ness of purpose; in reprobation of that haste 
in judgment which leads one to rebuke the 
faults of his fellows before taking time to dis- 
cover his own; in emphasis upon the duty to 
order conduct toward, others as one would 
wish to have conduct ordered toward himself; 
in placing alongside the supreme obligation of 
a man the requirement to love his neighbor as 
himself. This profound stress upon the ethi- 
cal appears, moreover, in the whole attitude of 
Christ toward the Pharisaic model. Nothing 
plainly was more abhorrent to His mind than 
the rating of ceremonial scrupulosity above 
carefulness to fulfill the common duties spring- 
ing out of the relation of man to man. Mere 
ritual, or ecclesiastical performance, divorced 



96 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

from ethical living, and depended upon as a 
means of capturing God's favor, He regarded 
as a travesty of true religion, something to be 
likened to a whitewashed sepulcher. Indeed, 
it may truly be said that the acme of all the 
righteous indignation ever expressed by Christ 
was directed against casting ethical demands 
into the shade in favor of performances im- 
properly dignified with the name of religion. 

On the other hand, Christ was very remote 
from substituting morality, as commonly un- 
derstood, for religion. As clearly as He held 
in view the ethical province, so clearly he rec- 
ognized the all-encompassing presence of the 
divine. The thought of the heavenly Father 
was to Him as the sun in the sky. With the 
prophets of Israel He taught that the foremost 
requirement is that of loving God with all the 
heart, mind, soul, and strength. Spiritual vic- 
tory He regarded as dependent upon cleaving 
closely to God ; and the path to true peace and 
superiority to earthly trouble which He set 
before men was the path of self -committal to 
God, and of simple trust in His minute, un- 
ceasing care. From first to last in the teach- 
ing of Christ there is no suggestion but that 
the true life for man is one insphered in the 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 97 

thought of God and in the grateful conscious- 
ness of His presence. 

There is little occasion to remark that the 
inseparable union between morality and reli- 
gion, exemplified in the teaching of Christ, is 
of profound significance. Religion runs into 
artificiality and caricature when separated 
from morality or only loosely associated there- 
with. Moral life tends to meagerness and 
superficiality when deprived of the vitalizing 
and ennobling impulses which come from the 
thought of divine associations. The demand 
of health for the individual and the community 
is the harmonious combination of the two. It 
is no inferior tribute, therefore, to the office 
of Christ as revealer which appears in the fact 
that He so profoundly accentuated the union 
of morality and religion. 

Again it is to be noticed that the ideal which 
Christ sets before men, though very lofty, is 
yet thoroughly human. It has an appearance 
of being made for a real world, and real hu- 
man beings. The disciple is not called to walk 
in strange paths, or to expect transformations 
that do violence to the demands of personal 
identity. Nowhere in Christ's words will he 
find a hint that union with God implies a 
swamping of self -consciousness, or a species 






98 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of annihilation, such as is involved in the Neo- 
Platonic doctrine of ecstasy and the Brahmani- 
cal doctrine of reabsorption. Nowhere will he 
hear a summons to lose himself save in the 
sense of a sane absorption in the pursuit of 
great, holy, and benevolent ends. Indeed the 
tendency of Christ's teaching is to make the 
man who truly appropriates it at home both 
with himself and with God. It rebukes noth- 
ing that is purely and truly human in men, 
and only asks that the human should come to 
its best by standing in the transfiguring light 
of intimate association with the divine. It is 
equally free from false asceticism and fanci- 
ful mysticism. While thoroughly sane and 
practical it is far from being prosaic or com- 
monplace. 

In any full exposition of Christ's office as 
revealer it would be necessary to consider the 
light which He has cast upon the character of 
God and upon the subject of the immortal 
life. But having occasion to treat of these top- 
ics in other connections we pass on to notice 
the relation which the miracles of Christ hold 
to His office as the authoritative revealer or 
expositor of spiritual verities. 

And here distinct notice needs to be made 
of the truth that a main element in the credi- 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 99 

bility of the miracles ascribed to Christ con- 
sists precisely in their harmonious relation to 
the office which He fulfilled as revealer. Re- 
ports of miracles, it may be said in general, 
are not excluded by any absolute improba- 
bility, provided it be admitted that there is a 
personal God back of nature, who holds to it 
a free relation and uses it as an instrument. 
Nature may be a peculiarly comprehensive in- 
strument, but if it is only an instrument, it 
is quite conceivable that God may show His 
free relation to it by working at one point 
or another a departure from its ordinary 
course. To do so would not endanger in the 
least the integrity of the system of nature. 
Even men as free agents can produce manifold 
changes in the sphere of nature which her own 
laws left to themselves would never bring 
about, without at the same time working the 
least damage to a single natural law. Much 
more can the God who holds the universe of 
things in His hands intervene by His power to 
work a change which, though outside the regu- 
lar course of nature, induces no sign of breach 
or catastrophe in her system. 

The only real question, then, relative to the 
possibility of a miraculous working is the ques- 
tion of sufficient motive. Now, it may be 



100 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

granted that there seems to be good reason, 
even though nature be viewed as subordinate 
to the kingdom of moral persons, why in gen- 
eral the divine administration should conserve 
the regular operation of her laws, or abstain 
from miraculous interventions in their sphere. 
A steadfast system of laws is not only a great 
instrument in man's intellectual and industrial 
development, but also in his moral discipline. 
It is good for him to be under the yoke of na- 
ture and to be required to conform to her im- 
perative demands. This order of subjection 
lielps to school him for that high citizenship to 
which he is called as a member of the divine 
kingdom. But if there is great educative vir- 
tue in such an instrumentality as the ordinary 
course of nature, it is also true that the extraor- 
dinary may have a special educative virtue. 
By the very fact that it is out of the ordinary 
course, an infrequent and remarkable event, 
it may serve to awaken attention and bring 
men to a vivid sense of the presence and agency 
of the unseen Person on whom they depend. 
Set over against a steadfast or relatively stead- 
fast, system of nature, the miracle may con- 
ceivably be an effective means of tuition. It is 
not, therefore, to be challenged as in itself in- 
credible. But, on the other hand, its credibil- 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 101 

ity is not independent of its educative value. 
Better to let the course of nature, with its in- 
dubitable educational value, stand without ap- 
parent interruption, than to superinduce a 
miracle which does not, under the given condi- 
tions, provide a higher treasure of discipline 
or education. A reputed miracle which is 
linked with no high message, which does not 
carry up the mind naturally to truths which 
are healthful and inspiring to contemplate, is 
not adapted to win rational faith. It appears 
too much in the character of a mere eccen- 
tricity to seem worthy of divine agency. If 
awarded any measure of credence, it must be 
on the basis of an extraordinary weight of 
testimony, and even then it must be taken 
rather as an unavoidable burden than a felt 
benediction. 

The gospel miracles have in general a special 
claim upon faith as meeting in a high degree 
the test of educative value. Seen in their true 
character they appear as something more than 
the mere credentials of a divine messenger. 
They contributed to the message itself. They 
pictured in visible deeds the same truths which 
Christ proclaimed by word of mouth. Divine 
benevolence and compassion shine through 
them. They are a perennial source of instruc- 



102 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

tion and a perpetual incentive to religious trust 
and confidence. In one point of view they 
have a better significance for us than for the 
groups which witnessed them; for, having be- 
fore us a picture of the completed life of Christ, 
we are better prepared than were those about 
Him to see the harmonious relation in which 
His deeds of power stand to His Person and 
teaching. Had not the deeds of power been 
at the same time harmonious elements of reve- 
lation, a severe strain would have been brought 
to bear upon the testimony in their behalf. As 
it is, we are prepared to receive without preju- 
dice the cogent testimony which bespeaks 
faith in Christ's miraculous deeds. Fitting 
as congruous features into a biography whose 
unique characteristics have compelled even men 
of skeptical temper to confess that they must 
have been copied from actual life, they have 
a firm basis in the apostolic testimony which 
was undoubtedly the primary ground of the 
written reports of them contained in the New 
Testament. 

///: The Work of Christ as Redeemer 

The preceding themes have afforded a 
measure of preparation for the contemplation 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 103 

of Christ as Redeemer, Saviour, or Reconciler. 
In actualizing the moral ideal, in teaching the 
great truths which relate to God and His 
kingdom, and in illustrating by a matchless 
example the life of sonship toward God and 
of self-sacrificing brotherly interest in men, 
He became a redemptive power, a spring of 
saving influence in the midst of the race. Our 
present theme, therefore, must be regarded as 
inclusive of much that has already claimed our 
attention. In treating it we attempt only a 
brief statement of the main points. 

1. However much or little of a philoso- 
phy of redemption is contained in the New 
Testament writings, no one can fail to see that 
these writings profoundly emphasize the fact 
that a work of redemption, salvation, or rec- 
onciliation has been accomplished in and 
through Christ. With unceasing repetition, 
and in great variety of phrase, they summon 
to faith in Christ as the Redeemer or Saviour 
of men. He is reported as declaring of Him- 
self that He came to give His lif e a ransom for 
many, to shed His blood for the remission of 
sins, to be lifted up that He might draw all 
men unto Himself. It is said of Him that 
He tasted death for every man; that He was 
delivered up for us all ; that He gave Himself 



104 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

for our sins; that He bore the sins of many; 
that He made propitiation for the sins of the 
people ; that He gave Himself up for an offer- 
ing and a sacrifice ; that He was manifested to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; that 
through Him we have our redemption, the 
forgiveness of our trespasses. He is described 
as the one through whom we are reconciled unto 
God and receive His free gift of justification; 
as the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin 
of the world ; as the source of the purity sym- 
bolized by the white robes of the victors in 
heaven ; as the one mediator between God and 
man ; as the advocate with the Father and the 
propitiation for sins; as the way by which 
alone any man cometh unto the Father; as 
having the only name under heaven wherein 
we must be saved ; as being the foundation for 
which there is no substitute; as giving power 
to all receiving Him to become the children of 
God ; as the bearer of eternal life, the author to 
all that obey Him of eternal salvation. Many 
similar expressions might be added. It is not 
too much to say that the thought of the saving 
office of Christ is woven into the texture of the 
New Testament. 8 

8 See Matt, xx, 28 ; Luke xxiv, 46, 47 ; John iii, 14, 15, x, 11, 
17, 18 ; Heb. ii, 9 ; Luke xxii, 19, 20 ; Rom. v, 6, 8, viii, 32 ; 
1 Cor. xv, 3 ; 2 Cor. v, 14, 15, 21 ; Gal. i, 4 ; Heb. ix, 27, 28 ; 
1 Pet. ii, 24 ; Rev. vii, 9, 13, 14 ; John i, 29 ; Heb. ii, 17 ; Eph. 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 105 

2. While the Scriptures are much more 
occupied with asserting the fact of Christ's sav- 
ing office than with defining its ground or 
method, they do make it plain that there is 
no propriety in drawing a contrast between 
Christ and the Father in respect of their rela- 
tion toward the sinful race. No hint is given 
that the Son needed by His self-immolation to 
constrain the Father to grace and compassion. 
Nowhere is it said that the sacrifice of the Son 
was a procuring cause of the love of God to 
sinners. On the contrary, the scriptural repre- 
sentation is that it was out of His abounding 
love to men that the Father sent the Son. The 
imagination which dissociates or contrasts 
the two is thoroughly unbiblical. It strikes 
also against the reason of the case. The 
Father by virtue of His boundless love for the 
Son must have shared His sacrifice. While 
the one was nailed to the visible wood the other 
must have had the cross in His heart. 

3. We are not required to think that pain 
in itself is any source of gratification to God, 
or that the efficacy of Christ's work depended 
upon the mere amount of pain endured. It 

v, 2; Matt, xxvi, 28; Rom. v, 10, 11, 18, 19; Bph. i, 7, ii, 13; 
Col. i, 21, 22; 1 Cor. vi, 19, 20; Gal. iii, 13; Col. i, 13, 14; 
1 Tim. ii, 5, 6; Heb. ix, 11, 12; 1 Pet. i, 18, 19; Rev. v, 9, 10; 
Rom. iii, 24-26; 1 John ii, 1, 2; John xiv, 6; Acts iv, 12, ii, 32, 
33; John xiv, 26, i, 12; iii, 36; Rom. vi, 23; 1 John v, 11, 12; 
1 Cor. i, 30, xv, 21, 22 ; Heb. v, 9 ; Jobn iii, 16 ; 1 John iv, 9, 10. 



106 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

is by a very intelligible rhetorical expedient 
that scriptural language is so full of reference 
to the sufferings, the death, and the shed blood 
of Christ. Herein were supplied the most 
striking and affecting symbols of the ethical 
values contained in His life-work. Did that 
life-work embody the purest expression of 
love, the most complete self-devotement, the 
most steadfast and unswerving obedience to 
holy law in all the range of its application? 
Then, to point to the humiliation and suffering 
undergone was the practical way to set forth 
in a vivid manner the greatness of these ethical 
values. What the Son of God was willing to 
endure and did endure gave an apprehensible 
measure of the love, of the self-devotement, 
and of the holy obedience. This explains 
why in sacred oratory the stress runs so largely 
to Christ's passion. But evidently in reflective 
thought it would be reversing the true order to 
place the sign and the measure above the things 
signified and measured. The former were in- 
deed important in the line of manifestation, 
but the latter were indispensable in the most 
fundamental sense. The means of manifesta- 
tion, namely the suffering and the shed blood, 
would have been nugatory without the high 
ethical values — the love, the righteousness, the 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 107 

spirit of sacrifice, and the holy obedience — 
which needed to be manifested. Glimpses of 
this point of view are not wanting in the Scrip- 
tures. Christ Himself represented His death 
not merely as an ordeal visited upon Him, 
but as a deed of love and self-devotement, an 
experience which indeed He was not called 
upon to precipitate, but which yet He fore- 
saw and welcomed as a part of His mission. 
Paul also directs attention to the ethical value 
of Christ's sufferings, characterizing His 
righteous obedience as the offset to man's dis- 
obedience, and describing His death as the 
crowning expression of that obedience. "He 
humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto 
death, yea, the death of the cross." 9 

4. There is no ground for questioning the 
redemptive or reconciling virtue of Christ's 
work subjectively considered, or in respect of 
salutary influence upon men. Whether the 
so-called subjective theories contain the whole 
truth or not, they certainly contain truth that 
must be placed in the front line of every worthy 
exposition of this theme. The manifestation 
of the pure and lofty personality of Christ, 
His proclamation of the patient, generous, 
seeking love of God, His imaging forth of 

6 Phil, ii, 8. 



108 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

that love by the whole tenor of His words and 
deeds, and especially by His readiness to de- 
scend to the lowest depths and to drink the bit- 
terest cup of sorrow — all this is an object les- 
son which has perennial efficacy to awaken 
the attention of men, to rebuke their sin, to 
show them the beauty of God's relation to 
them, to elicit their hope and confidence, to 
win their hearts. Christ is a redemptive po- 
tency in the world through the illuminating 
and persuasive power of the divine manifesta- 
tion made in and through Him. 

5. While it would be a great fault to push 
into the background the aspect of Christ's re- 
demptive work just described, a question may 
be raised as to whether an objective bearing is 
not to be conjoined therewith; in other words, 
whether the work of Christ, besides being a 
means of salutary influence upon men, was 
not in some sense a condition, on the divine 
side, of the economy or scheme of universal 
grace, and of its open publication to the world. 
A review of scriptural data will show that 
something can be said in favor of an affirmative 
conclusion. In the first place the representa- 
tion of Christ's death as having an import for 
the whole race leans to this side. Great num- 
bers of men, so far as our knowledge goes, 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 109 

have no opportunity to know of Christ, so as 
to be benefited by the salutary influence 
emanating from the revelation made in Him. 
When, therefore, scriptural writers speak of 
Him as tasting death for every man, the mean- 
ing of their words is not clear, unless it be 
assumed that they thought of men as standing 
in a universal economy of grace by reason of 
the work of Christ who gave His life for them. 
The description of Him as the one mediator 
between God and man and the statement that 
no man cometh unto the Father except by 
Him may be taken as implying not merely that 
He is a conspicuous agent of divine grace, but 
that the general dispensation of divine grace 
is conditioned upon His person and work. 
An equivalent import may be attached to the 
words which speak of justification as being 
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ; 
of the peace of God as being attained through 
our Lord Jesus Christ; and of men, while yet 
enemies as being reconciled unto God by the 
death of His Son. Furthermore the signifi- 
cance which the New Testament writers prob- 
ably attached to sacrifices, as means of sym- 
bolizing the covering of sins, may be regarded 
as implying that in their references to the 
sacrifice of Christ they thought of it as enter- 



110 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ing into the basis of salvation, or into the 
ground of its possibility, and not merely as 
qualified to influence men toward salvation by 
giving a wholesome impulse to thought and 
feeling. Once more, New Testament lan- 
guage invites to a repose in Christ which, it 
may be said, agrees with the supposition that 
the economy of grace was in some sense 
founded in Him and not merely revealed 
through Him. 

6. Accepting the probability that the New 
Testament writers attributed an objective bear- 
ing to Christ's work of redemption or atone- 
ment — in the sense of regarding that work as 
meeting a condition, on the divine side, of hu- 
man salvation — we add a few words on the 
proper interpretation of the bearing in ques- 
tion. As already stated, it is entirely inad- 
missible to think of Christ's work as a procur- 
ing cause of God's love. If, then, that work 
is to be regarded as really a condition, on the 
divine side, of a general economy of grace, it 
must be regarded as expressing a condition 
which pertains simply to the method of love. 
The love of God itself is to be viewed as in- 
finite and eternal. But God is infinitely 
righteous as well as infinitely loving. As His 
attributes always subsist in perfect harmony, 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 111 

the method of love must always respect the 
claims of righteousness. This is no disadvan- 
tage to love, since it seeks the best good of the 
universe, and nothing contrary to the interests 
of righteousness can be for the good of the 
universe. It is not incredible, then, that in the 
plan for the rescue of a sinful race — the plan 
formed in eternity — the interests of righteous- 
ness as well as the promptings of love were 
consulted, and it was determined that the very 
One who should be the bearer of the message 
of love should also supremely illustrate the 
claims of righteousness by His perfect loyalty 
in the midst of sinners, His victory over 
every besetment, His unmeasured self-devote- 
ment, His obedience even unto death, yea, 
the death of the cross. In other words, the 
Christ of Calvary was put into the eternal plan 
of God in relation to the race as the perfectly 
fitting means to fulfill the harmonious demands 
of both love and righteousness. In so far as 
the latter order of demands is viewed as a 
necessaiy accompaniment of the former, the 
work of Christ which reveals and exalts it is 
viewed as necessaiy, and takes rank on the di- 
vine side as a condition of a general economy 
of grace, or as an indispensable factor in such 
an economy. 



112 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

In this view there is no hint of a change of 
disposition in God. Since the claims of His 
righteousness as well as those of His love 
were consulted in the economy or plan of 
grace instituted in eternity, He is to be 
thought of as maintaining through all history 
one self -consistent disposition toward the race. 
He has always viewed it not simply as a race 
of sinners, but as a race incorporating in itself 
His well-beloved Son and having in Him a 
sure ground of righteousness. In this sense it 
may be said that God reconciles Himself 
through Christ to the race, as well as provides 
for the reconciliation of the race to Himself. 
He reconciles Himself to the race not as un- 
dergoing a change of attitude in time, but as 
having in Christ from eternity a ground of a 
more complacent attitude toward the race 
than He could otherwise have. 

IV: The Lordship of Christ 

The name of Lord, which is applied to Christ 
in the New Testament, directs our thought 
not merely to a historical personage on the 
theater of this world, but to a being clothed 
with continuous power and prerogative. Christ 
Himself thus interpreted His lordship. He 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 113 

claimed it indeed as something already belong- 
ing to Him in the midst of His earthly minis- 
try. He displayed it in the authoritative tone 
of His speech, in His mastery over disease and 
death, in the exercise of the prerogative to 
forgive sins, in His placing of relationship to 
Himself above all earthly relationships, in 
His very significant declaration of the sub- 
ordination of Sabbath observance to the will 
of the Son of Man, in His institution of ordi- 
nances to be perpetually observed. But with 
all this exhibition of regal authority on earth 
Christ still contemplated the exercise of His 
lordship as lying principally beyond His resur- 
rection and return to the Father. He ex- 
pected to accompany with His spiritual pres- 
ence the consecrated servants of His king- 
dom. He promised to be with His disciples 
always even unto the end of the world. He 
authorized them to anticipate a glorious era 
when they shall renew companionship with 
Him and be welcomed to a life of transcendant 
nobility and unending felicity. 

In harmony with the expectation and prom- 
ise of the Master is the whole line of apos- 
tolic reference. Christ is identified as the 
source of the new spiritual energy which came 
into the souls of the disciples on the day of 



114 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Pentecost. Baptism is said to have been ad- 
ministered in the name of Christ. The mar- 
tyred Stephen commended to Christ his depart- 
ing spirit. Christ is spoken of as the Lord of 
glory, Lord of the dead and of the living, one 
whom every tongue is to confess as Lord. He 
is described as the effulgence of the Father's 
glory, and the very image of His substance. 
He is characterized as the fashioner and up- 
holder of all things. He is viewed as an in- 
ward vitalizing power, making free from the 
law of sin and death, dwelling in the hearts of 
faithful disciples and bringing His life to 
manifestation in their conduct. Instead of 
being thought of as beyond the range of prac- 
tical brotherhood, He is represented as touched 
with a feeling of the infirmities of tempted 
mortals, and as ever living to make interces- 
sion for them. He is conceived to be in this 
lower world where any humble group is gath- 
ered in His name. He is conceived also to be 
enthroned above the hosts of the world on high, 
joint recipient with the Father of the ascrip- 
tions which are rendered by the innumerable 
multitude, and joint source with Him also of 
the light of heaven. 

It appears, therefore, that the lordship of 
Christ is a very vital and practical matter. The 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 115 

ascended Lord is also the ever-present Lord. 
He companies with the disciple in the inti- 
macy of a heart companionship. He is 
brother and Lord in one, truly human and 
truly divine. So completely is He with men 
that He serves as the perfect bond of union 
between them ; and so intimately is He related 
to the Father that He provides the perfect 
way of approach to Him. Surely lordship 
never took on a more lovable aspect than in 
Christ ! Allegiance to Him makes no grievous 
yoke. 

In the concrete picture of Christ the hu- 
man and the divine give us no real trouble by 
their contrasts. They are as well fitted to 
one another as earth and sky in the landscape. 
To analyze their interrelations is, however, a 
task too great for our limited insight. Prob- 
ably the best that we can do is to think of the 
divine as a kind of over-soul closely and con- 
stantly related to the human in our Lord by 
virtue of the incarnation. But it would not be 
wise to dwell at length upon this form of ex- 
position. It behooves us in the interest of prac- 
tical piety to pass speedily from the field of 
analysis and to concentrate attention upon the 
historic manifestation, where the human and 
the divine are so harmoniously united as to 



116 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

set before us the image of one self -consistent 
personality. 



V: Supplementary Topics — The Supernatural 
Conception and the Resurrection of Christ 

Dealing very briefly with these topics, we 
remark in the first place on the former, that 
the question of the supernatural conception 
of Jesus, the Christ, is a question relative to 
the method of the origination of His humanity. 
It has no direct bearing on the existence in 
Him of a transcendent or divine factor, such 
a factor being plainly no proper subject for 
generation in the earthly time sphere. Indi- 
rectly it may bear in some degree on the sup- 
position of extraordinary powers and rela- 
tionships as pertaining to Christ. The extraor- 
dinary conception suggests a destination of its 
subject to a very remarkable mission, and 
favors belief in the hidden possession by Him 
of corresponding personal endowments. In 
the immediate view, however, it simply defines 
the method by which the human Jesus attained 
to germinal existence. 

In the second place, it is to be noted that 
there is good reason to conclude that the story 
incorporating this feature was no late impor- 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 117 

tation, but rather had place in about the most 
primitive stratum of the tradition respecting 
the life of Mary's son. Passages in the Gos- 
pels which affirm it contain marks of a spe- 
cially early origin. This applies very notice- 
ably to the first two chapters of Luke's Gos- 
pel. "Whatever," says Professor Sanday of 
Oxford, "the date at which the chapters were 
first set down in writing, in any case the con- 
tents of the chapters are the most archaic 
things in the whole New Testament." 10 The 
judgment of Professor Weinel is no less posi- 
tive. "Although Luke," he writes, "first with 
the art of his speech may have imparted to the 
story a part of its charm, in its whole trend 
it is much older and belongs alone, through the 
fact that it traces back Jesus beyond Joseph 
to David, to the oldest material we possess 
from the Christian company." X1 

The third legitimate proposition may take 
this form: Historical disproof of the super- 
natural conception has not been, and in all 
probability never can be, achieved, any more 
than downright historical proof. Certainly 
no real installment of a disproof has been fur- 
nished in the fact that one reading in an an- 

10 Cited by James Orr, "The Virgin Birth," Appendix. 

11 "Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments," p. 233. 



118 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

cient manuscript of Matthew's Gospel can be 
taken as ignoring the extraordinary agency of 
the Spirit in the conception of Jesus. Within 
the space of four verses this same manuscript 
categorically affirms that peculiar agency. As 
against this record, and the record of Luke 
with its archaic stamp, the single verse in the 
single ancient copy of Matthew's text cannot 
be rated as an evidence of appreciable weight. 
About as little decisive for the negative as 
the above item is the presumed and not im- 
probable fact, that the genealogies, as set down 
in both Matthew and Luke, give the line of 
Joseph. This was the appropriate procedure 
in setting forth the fact of the Davidic right 
pertaining to Jesus, even in face of the sup- 
position of the supernatural conception. As 
Dalman remarks: "A case such as that of 
Jesus was, of course, not anticipated by the 
law ; but if no other human father was alleged, 
then the child must have been regarded as 
bestowed by God upon the house of Joseph, 
for a betrothed woman, according to Israel- 
itish law, already occupied the same status as 
a wife. The divine will, in the case of this 
birth, conferred upon the child its own right 
of succession, which, once Joseph recognized 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 119 

it, would not have been disputed even by a 
Jewish judge." 12 

How unlikely are the chances for historical 
disproof is well illustrated by attempts to ex- 
plain the importation of the notion of the 
supernatural conception into the primitive 
Christian community. Authorities here are in 
conflict. Schmiedel is averse to identifying 
Judaism as the source. He declares, "The 
notion of a supernatural birth never at any 
time attached to the idea of the Jewish Mes- 
siah." 13 The more conservative Dalman adds 
his weighty authority to this statement, 14 and 
it may be regarded as confirmed by the known 
position of the stricter wing of the Ebionites, 
by the language which Justin Martyr puts in- 
to the mouth of the Jew Trypho, and by the 
testimony of Hippolytus. On the other hand, 
Lobstein discovers no credible antecedent to 
the doctrine of the supernatural conception 
except in the religion of Israel. So deep- 
seated was the aversion which primitive Chris- 
tianity felt for polytheistic paganism that it 
would surely have been disinclined to borrow 
from that province. 15 The judgment of Pro- 

12 "The Words of Jesus Considered in the Light of Post-Biblical 
Jewish Writings and the Aramaic Language," pp. 319-320. 

13 "Encyclopaedia Biblica," article, Mary. 
""Words of Jesus, etc.," p. 276. 

ir '"The Virgin Birth of Christ," pp. 75, 76. , 



120 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

fessor Harnack is corroborative. He says: 
"The conjecture that the idea of a birth from 
a virgin is a heathen myth, which was received 
by Christians, contradicts the entire earliest 
development of Christian tradition." 16 Even 
agreement on the part of historical critics as to 
the source from which it might plausibly be 
assumed that the idea of the supernatural con- 
ception may have been borrowed would not 
be any complete historical disproof of that 
idea. Under the actual conditions, then, it is 
quite apparent that real disproof has made 
insignificant headway along the line under 
consideration. 

From the very nature of the subject faith 
in the supernatural conception cannot claim 
the most decisive credentials. Apart from the 
testimony of a very early and vital tradition, 
it can only appeal to the general congruity of 
the reported extraordinary birth with the per- 
son and office of Christ as they stand forth 
in the New Testament. Those who are ill af- 
fected toward the supposition of the real oc- 
currence of miracles in any field will naturally 
be very ready to challenge the historicity of 
the gospel story of the virgin birth of Jesus. 
Those not intolerant of the given supposition 

16 "History of Dogma," I, 100, cited by G. H. Box, "The Virgin 
Birth of Jesus." 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 121 

are under no compulsion to take that alterna- 
tive. The author confesses that, for himself, 
he has no quarrel with that specification on 
this theme in the Apostles' Creed which has 
been on the lips of the great majority of Chris- 
tians for nearly two thousand years. 

It is not too much to say respecting the evi- 
dences for the resurrection of Christ that they 
make as near an approach to historical demon- 
stration as could with proper sobriety be de- 
manded. Some apparent disagreements in the 
gospel narratives may indeed furnish matter 
to the objector. But a criticism which has not 
become near-sighted and picayunish by con- 
tinuous grubbing in small details will not 
magnify the import of discrepancies in the 
subordinate particulars of brief and independ- 
ent reports. The main stress is due to the 
prominent and concurring lines of evidence; 
and these are by no means scanty in connection 
with the present theme. 17 

1. We have the fact that a man of Paul's 
moral potency and intellectual caliber, on the 
basis of data gathered within a very few years 
of Christ's death, specified as vouchers for the 
actual appearance of the risen Christ a full 

17 For a fuller statement of the evidence see the author's "Sys- 
tem of Christian Doctrine," pp. 581-590. 



12S THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

list of witnesses, the majority of whom were 
still alive at the time when he wrote. As hav- 
ing been formerly a special agent of the Phar- 
isaic and priestly party in its attempt to 
suppress those who believed on Jesus, he must 
have known what that party was able to offer 
against the fact of the resurrection. Unde- 
niably he had very eminent qualifications to 
serve as the competent witness. 

2. We are furnished with the unanimous 
testimony of the New Testament historians 
to the fact of the empty tomb. What had 
become of the body? To charge the disciples 
with having stolen and concealed it lands one 
in helpless absurdity. A dead body under 
their hand and a he upon their tongues and 
consciences could never have fitted them to be 
the heroes and martyrs of a new dispensation. 
On the other hand, if their opponents had rifled 
the tomb, they had but to produce their 
prey to confound the new-born enthusiasm of 
the sect of the Nazarene. 

3. We are given the concurring testimony 
of Paul and all the Evangelists respecting the 
appearance of Christ to the whole apostolic 
company. And with this phase of history we 
may legitimately conjoin the fact that there 
was manifestly at work in the company of the 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 123 

disciples, very soon after the crucifixion, a 
mighty creative power, such as might well 
have issued from a great and marvelous event 
like the reappearance of the beloved Master. 
To suppose that the transformation was 
wrought by the ghostly images born of dis- 
tempered fancies makes a great strain upon 
rational conviction. Then, too, it is trouble- 
some to conceive how groups of individuals, 
some of whom were among the most hard- 
headed and practical men anywhere to be 
found in that age, could have been subjects 
for a common and simultaneous illusion. It is 
to be noted, moreover, that the disciples be- 
lieved, not merely that they saw the risen 
Christ, but that they also received messages 
from Him. Is it to be supposed that their 
senses conspired to play them tricks? Of 
course the reality of the messages may be de- 
nied. But the fact remains that they were 
conformable to the tenor of the Gospels, and 
in their combination of simplicity and grand- 
eur they are such messages as might properly 
be supposed to have been spoken by the risen 
Lord. 

4. The resurrection of Christ is made cred- 
ible by the intimate relation existing between 
the recorded forecast of the same and an in- 



124 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

dubitably fulfilled prophecy. All the evan- 
gelists testify that Christ foretold to the dis- 
ciples, with specification of approximate date 
and circumstances, His violent death. They 
are clear and emphatic on this point. Now 
the fulfillment of this line of prophecies makes 
for belief in the fulfillment of the declarations 
of Christ respecting the rising of the Son of 
Man from the dead which was to succeed the 
ignominious death. It may be alleged indeed 
that if these forecasts of the resurrection had 
been actually spoken, the disciples would not 
have fallen into such a despairing mood after 
the crucifixion of their Leader. But this in- 
duction is not well taken. Only by slow de- 
grees did the disciples rise to anything like a 
spiritual conception of the Messianic kingdom. 
From their habitual point of view the death 
of the Messiah was a dark enigma. It seemed 
to them like the swallowing up of all hope and 
promise. They remained unreconciled to the 
thought of such a terrible issue. By natural 
consequence the forecast of the resurrection 
of the Master remained in mist and obscurity. 
As one of the evangelists reports they had 
questionings on the subject and shrank from 
asking explanations. 1 ^ When therefore the 

"Mark ix, 31, 32. 



THE PLACE OF JESUS 125 

catastrophe came, and Jesus yielded up His 
life upon the cross, they were too stricken in 
heart to entertain any substantial hope. So 
their mood does not deny the utterance of the 
assurances respecting the rising from the dead. 
He who spoke with true forecast of the cruci- 
fixion may reasonably be supposed to have 
spoken with true forecast of the resurrection. 
5. Finally we have the consideration that 
the resurrection may most reasonably be reck- 
oned as a completing factor in the office of 
Saviour so prominently associated with Christ 
in the Gospels. 



CHAPTER IV: THE CHRISTIAN 
TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 

7: A Word on Proofs of the Divine Existence 

The scriptural writers were very little in- 
clined to engage in formal argumentation for 
the existence of God. Beyond question they 
were deeply convinced, especially those of 
them who were richly endowed with poetic 
sentiment, that nature attests a mighty and 
wonderfully skilful Maker. To them it 
seemed that the heavens declared the glory of 
God, and that the orderly motions of the sun, 
moon, and stars could reasonably be referred 
to nothing else than the guiding hand of the 
Great Shepherd of the skies. It was their 
judgment that the man who said in his heart, 
"There is no God," had unequivocally earned 
the title of "fool." Not one of them would 
have hesitated to subscribe to Paul's declara- 
tion that the everlasting power and divinity of 
God have, ever since the creation, been so 
clearly revealed, through the things that are 
seen, that those who refuse to recognize Him 
are without excuse. 1 Still it was their habit to 

iRom. i, 20. 

126, 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 127 

assume rather than attempt to prove the di- 
vine existence. They evidently felt that it was 
a truth which shone too brightly in the inner 
sanctuary of men's spirits to make it needful 
to be trying to cast upon it the rays of formally 
stated proofs. 

Some in our times are distinctly less appre- 
ciative of attempted proofs than were the scrip- 
tural writers. They not only advise practical 
abstinence from them, but are forward to dis- 
parage them as essentially worthless. This 
strikes us as neither necessary nor prudent. 
We grant that the so-called proofs have at 
times been overrated. None of them reach 
to the point of absolute demonstration. At 
best they furnish only substantial grounds for 
a rational and warranted faith. We grant also 
that one and another of the proofs, however 
much cried up by its author and zealously re- 
peated by his disciples, has no claim to accept- 
ance and continued use. This remark holds of 
the Anselmic argument, and also of the Carte- 
sian in at least one of its forms. Unmistakable 
faults attach to these as virtually harboring the 
assumption that it is possible to establish a fact 
on the sole basis of a conception, to deduce a 
reality from an idea pure and simple. Disaf- 



128 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

fection, however, toward proofs of this type 
does not justify a wholesale repudiation of at- 
tempts rationally to establish the truth of the 
divine existence. While formal arguments do 
not function as the main ground of faith, they 
are likely in the long run to exercise a steady- 
ing influence over conviction. This much at 
least can be said of the cosmological and teleo- 
logical arguments. 

The first-named emphasizes the demand for 
a real cause of the cosmic system and for an in- 
telligible explanation of interaction between 
the several parts of that system. It is con- 
tended that a second cause, or simple medium 
for the transmitting of efficiency, does not an- 
swer to the genuine conception of cause. If it 
is objected that the search for cause in this 
character should be renounced, it is answered 
that an alternative of this kind cannot be made 
satisfactory to the human mind. It is not 
agreeable to its constitution to rest upon the 
notion of an efficiency which, though not origi- 
nal, comes from nothing and nowhere. The 
postulate of an endless regress denies a point of 
rest to the mind by denying to it the concep- 
tion of a real cause. Those who say, renounce 
the principle of causality, are not giving ad- 
vice that is easy to carry out consistently. Any 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 129 

one of them may be expected implicitly to fol- 
low the example of Hume, who exercised him- 
self greatly, right in the midst of his attempt 
to discredit the principle of causality, to dis- 
cover the cause of our belief in causality. The 
quest for cause is native to man and appro- 
priately leads him up to the First Great Cause, 
the one Reality that is reasonably postulated 
as explaining all else. 

The other feature of the cosmological argu- 
ment, the requirement for a satisfactory ac- 
count of sustained interaction between all parts 
of the world system, so as to make and con- 
serve it as a real system, is of no slight value. 
The members of the system are severally de- 
pendent, and adding them together would not 
constitute them an independent entity. Here 
the point of view of Professor Bowne is not a 
little illuminating. "An interacting many," he 
says, "cannot exist without a coordinating one. 
The interaction of our thoughts and mental 
states is possible only through the unity of a 
basal reality which brings them together in the 
unity of one consciousness. So the interactions 
of the universe are possible only through the 
unity of a basal reality which brings them to- 
gether in its one immanent omnipresence." 2 

2 "Metaphysics," first edition, p. 126. 



130 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

The teleological or design argument vies in 
cogency with the foregoing. Arrangements 
that accomplish on a vast scale results that are 
worthy of intelligence and purpose have a 
weighty claim to be referred to intelligence 
and purpose. And how can any man, who 
does not compel himself to look through the 
distorting mists of a rank pessimism, fail to 
observe an abundance of arrangements that 
conform to this description? It was not one 
tied to traditional creeds, but John Stuart 
Mill, who said, "I think it must be allowed that, 
in the present state of our knowledge, the adap- 
tations in nature afford a large balance in favor 
of creation by intelligence." 3 Evolution the- 
ory may have served to modify our method of 
reading the marks of intelligence or design, 
but it has by no means cancelled them. Many 
eminent naturalists have confessed as much. 
Recently increased emphasis has been given to 
the truth that the "survival of the fittest" does 
not carry with it an explanation of the arrival 
of the fittest, and of its arrival in such order 
as to lead on in an ascending scale the succes- 
sive ranks of organic life. It is in fact a very 
easygoing mental process that, in the presence 
of the world with its manifold and marvelously 

3 "Three Essays on Religion." p. 174. 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 131 

interrelated parts, can dispense with the Di- 
vine Agent. 

The argument from human nature may be 
classified as a select part of the proof from de- 
sign. In practical virtue it has not been de- 
throned, and there is the scantiest reason to sus- 
pect that it ever will be. In all his nobler en- 
dowments — intellectual, moral, religious, and 
aesthetic — man proclaims that he came, not 
from the dust of the earth, but from an all- 
wise and benevolent Spirit who designed him 
to fulfill a high destiny. 

II: Elements of the Hebraic Conception of God 
which Are Reproduced m Christianity 

It is not without a special advantage that we 
are able to deal with the theme of this chapter 
on the basis of an established conception re- 
specting the place of Christ in Christianity. 
The assurance that He impersonated the moral 
ideal, and was charged with an extraordinary 
vocation, supplies us with most valuable 
grounds of confidence in construing the idea 
of God. Wherever it appears difficult to har- 
monize an ideal conception of the Divine Be- 
ing with existing facts, it is of great conse- 
quence to be favored with the testimony of an 



132 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

expositor so well authenticated as we may ra- 
tionally believe the Christ to have been. 

In characterizing the Christian conception 
of God we may notice, in the first place, that 
it reproduces the three prominent elements of 
the Hebrew conception, namely, absolute su- 
premacy, distinct personality, and intensity of 
ethical life. The first of these elements cer- 
tainly is discoverable in the higher range of 
Hebrew thinking. It appears in the way in 
which the creation narrative, in the opening 
chapter of Genesis, describes God as originat- 
ing all things by the word of His power. The 
Psalmist gives vivid expression to it in the dec- 
laration, "By the Word of the Lord were the 
heavens made ; and all the host of them by the 
breath of His mouth. . . . He spake and it 
was done; He commanded and it stood fast." 4 
The hero of the Book of Job affirms it in terms 
no less graphic. After giving a catalogue of 
the mighty works of God, he adds, "Lo these 
are but the outskirts of His ways; and how 
small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the 
thunder of His power who can understand." 5 
Isaiah gives poetic representation to the same 
truth when he speaks of God as stretching out 
the heavens, like a curtain, or says that over 

4 Ps. xxxiii, 6, 9. 
5 Job xxvi, 14. 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 133 

against Him the nations are but as the drop of 
the bucket and the small dust of the balance." 6 
The like thought prompts Jeremiah to exclaim, 
"Lord, God! behold Thou hast made the 
heaven and the earth by Thy great power and 
by Thy stretched-out arm. There is nothing 
too hard for Thee." 7 Indeed, should one at- 
tempt to frame the strongest possible assertion 
of the absolute supremacy of God, in language 
addressed to imagination and feeling, as well 
as to intellect, he could not do better than to 
copy the sentences in which the Old Testament 
writers expressed their sense of the divine 
greatness. It was not God alongside the 
world, or submerged in the world, whom they 
contemplated; it was rather God supreme 
over the world and the almighty fashioner 
of all that it contains. They had no place 
accordingly for the notion of a limit upon 
the divine rule, such as is implied in the 
classic conception of fate. Making the uni- 
verse of things thoroughly dependent upon 
God they could apprehend no occasion for sup- 
posing 'that out of its sphere there could arise 
any power capable of defying divine mastery. 

As regards the personality of God, it does 
not seem to have entered the minds of the He- 

8 Isa. xi, 15. 
7 Jer. xxxii, 17. 



134 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

brew writers that there was any room for 
doubt. In their thought God was unequivo- 
cally the Supreme Person. And this meant 
two things. It signified, in the first place, that 
God is a being who has self -grasp, who makes 
and executes purposes, who dwells in the full 
light of self-consciousness. In the second 
place, it signified that God is a being with whom 
real fellowship is possible. It was indeed felt 
that He is partly shrouded in mystery. His 
presence at times seemed to be illusive. Thus 
Job was led to exclaim, "Behold, I go forward, 
but He is not there ; and backward, but I can- 
not perceive Him : on the left hand, when He 
doth work, but I cannot behold Him: He 
hideth Himself on the right hand, that I can- 
not see Him." 8 Nevertheless, it was the He- 
brew conviction that God stands to man as 
person to person. He has intelligence to hear 
and a heart to respond. A righteous man is 
privileged to rise superior to the sorrows and 
enigmas of life by entering into true converse 
and fellowship with Him. Even piety to-day 
can find few sentences better adapted than 
the vivid language of the Hebrew Psalms to 
express the repose of soul, the exuberant joy, 
and the sense of enrichment which belong with 

8 Job xxiii, 8, 9. 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 135 

the assurance that the Divine One is near, ac- 
cessible, and responsive. 

In harmony with this lively conception of the 
personality of God, Hebrew thought ascribed 
to Him great intensity of ethical life. It rep- 
resented Him as the living God, alert, active, 
keeping His eye upon all things and all events. 
No spirit of indifference or slumber attaches to 
Him. He has genuine delight in the righteous 
and the trustful. He is near them even before 
they call upon Him, their helper and refuge, 
their rock and strong tower, their light and 
salvation. On the other hand, His face is 
against them that do evil. "There is no dark- 
ness nor shadow of death where the workers of 
iniquity may hide themselves." 9 God possesses 
indeed the calm and majesty of conscious 
might. But in Him intensity is joined with the 
calm. He is alive to the very depths of His 
ethical nature, penetrated with the feelings 
which in an inferior measure characterize the 
true man. He is intense in His love and in- 
tense in His abhorrence. All things are naked 
and open in His sight, and He never views 
them with a careless glance. 

We have said that Christianity takes up 
these three elements of the Hebrew concep- 

9 Job xxxiv, 22. 



136 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

tion of God. With entire right we may add 
that, in every point of view, it is justified in 
so doing. Good philosophical warrant is on 
the side of their appropriation. 

With substantial unanimity through the 
Christian ages, and in emphatic terms, the 
first of the three elements has been affirmed. 
But strangely enough in our time a few writers 
have shown a fondness for the conception of a 
limited God. They contend that a certain re- 
ligious advantage pertains to the notion of a 
Deity who is circumscribed in power and under 
compulsion to battle with varying degrees of 
success against adverse world conditions. This 
view, they apprehend, involves an effective 
summons to men to help God in the task which 
puts so serious a strain upon His abilities. 
But it is quite certain that in the long run reli- 
gion must be damaged rather than helped by 
such a way of thinking. To make God an ob- 
ject of pity or patronage is to dethrone Him. 
The attitude of worship is not to be fostered 
by the contemplation of a weak and baffled 
Deity. The call to be coworkers with that sort 
of a world-sovereign cannot be made truly in- 
spiriting. It is vapid and nugatory com- 
pared with the summons enshrined in the 
thought that God almighty clothes us with 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 137 

marvelous honor in constituting us copartners 
with Himself in the working out of His great 
designs, simply because He is both wise and 
gracious. It is enough to quicken us to do our 
best — this thought that out of His wisdom and 
benevolence He makes us the bearers of His 
grace to our fellows, in order that we may be 
lifted up toward the likeness of His own good- 
ness, and that men may be the more firmly 
woven together into a close- joined fabric, an 
ideal society. The God who stands upon this 
high plane meets most fully the demands of the 
religious sentiment, and we can work in His 
presence with a hope and satisfaction which 
could not possibly be evoked by a God who is 
too small for His universe and needs to be 
helped up to His throne. 

The second characteristic element in the 
trend of the Hebrew revelation, namely, dis- 
tinct personality, has sometimes been chal- 
lenged from the side of a speculation inclining 
to pantheism. The infinite, it is argued, cannot 
be personal, since self -consciousness is fun- 
damental to the notion of personality, and self- 
consciousness is realized through the opposition 
of subject and object; but the infinite can 
not have any object set over against itself, in- 
asmuch as the object would be a limit or bound, 



138 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

and so would deny infinitude. This reasoning 
may have a plausible look. Its defects, how- 
ever, are not beyond discovery. In the first 
place, it errs by making the conditions of finite 
consciousness a standard for estimating those 
of all consciousness whatsoever. A limited be- 
ing like man necessarily grows in large part 
by what is contributed to him, or by reaction 
against his environment. He knows himself 
in and through his psychical states, and these 
as a matter of fact are largely determined by 
outside objects. But what reason is there for 
supposing that in the case of a being who is 
not under the law of growth, who as infinite has 
a complete content, there is any such depend- 
ence in the mental life upon an objective sphere 
of being ? A conditioned developing being may 
well have a conditioned consciousness. It 
by no means follows that the same is neces- 
sarily true of the original, unconditioned Be- 
ing. 

In the second place, the reasoning in ques- 
tion does not do justice even to the facts of 
finite consciousness. It involves an implicit 
assumption of the essential passivity of mind. 
For, unless the mind be purely passive it is 
not wholly dependent for self-consciousness 
upon reaction against an object. All that it 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 139 

needs for self -consciousness is positive states 
or exercises. Accordingly, if either it has posi- 
tive states of any sort by virtue of its consti- 
tution, or has a power of generating states, a 
faculty for initiating any sort of mental move- 
ment, it has in itself materials for at least some 
degree of self -consciousness. Now, of these 
suppositions the former is at least incapable 
of disproof. As for the latter, it is strongly 
sustained. The spontaneous irrepressible con- 
viction of men is on its side. Men are practi- 
cally unanimous in the persuasion that they 
have freedom, or the power of initiation. More- 
over, the acknowledgment of such a power is a 
necessary condition of an intelligible account 
of moral responsibility, not to say of an intelli- 
gible account of the distinction between truth 
and error. But if finite minds possess this 
power of initiation, much more may this be 
supposed to be the case with the Supreme 
Mind. The notion, therefore, of its necessary 
dependence upon an objective sphere for posi- 
tive mental states or exercises must appear to 
be illegitimate, and the objection urged against 
the possibility of self -consciousness or person- 
ality on the part of the infinite falls away. 

In the third place, the notion that the infinite 
must be impersonal errs by setting aside the 



140 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

richer conception of the infinite for one that 
is comparatively formal and empty. Greatness 
is not reached by the mere pushing out of a 
line, or by simple extension. The content or 
quality of being is of supreme moment in an 
estimate of greatness. To exclude from the in- 
finite the highest attributes or functions of 
which we have any conception, namely self- 
knowledge and free activity, is to deplete it of 
the highest forms of greatness in the interest 
of a vague extension. It is indeed to impose 
the most disparaging kind of limitations in 
the name of rejecting all limitations. The in- 
finite perfections of God, as the philosopher 
Lotze contends, so far from militating against 
His personality, enforces the conclusion that 
He alone has personality in the highest sense. 
Self -grasp in finite beings, though real, is im- 
perfect. 

As regards intensity of ethical life in God, 
the challenge to the Hebrew conception comes 
from a deistic way of thinking. To affirm rela- 
tions of familiarity between God and the 
world of creatures, the typical deist argues, is 
disparaging to His dignity. He discharged 
His responsibility to the world by setting it 
in motion under a comprehensive system of 
laws. As respects the details of its affairs 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 141 

there is no call for His interference or even for 
His concern. It borders on the absurd to sup- 
pose so lofty a Being to have any real care 
for the conduct of such small beings as men. 
Their puny deeds can neither darken His in- 
finite glory nor add a ray of light thereto. 
So runs the deistic plea. It may seem rather 
formidable at first thought, but it will not en- 
dure inspection. A little reflection must con- 
vince one that ethical greatness does not lie in 
the direction of indifference. It is rather 
meanness and poverty of spirit that are on that 
side. No parent proves himself great as a 
parent by holding himself aloof from his chil- 
dren in relation to their joys, sorrows, and di- 
versions. Save as the chords of His own being 
vibrate in response to their varied experiences 
he lacks the first requisite of parental great- 
ness. No sovereign demonstates his greatness 
by despising his subjects and overlooking in 
haughty unconcern both their crimes and their 
sufferings. In his indifference to the char- 
acter and well-being of his subjects he is more 
like to the marble image of a ruler than to the 
true sovereign. In all earthly relations it is 
recognized that the loftier the personality may 
be, the more beautiful and seemly appear his 
deeds of kindness and consideration toward 



142 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

the humble, the weak, and the ignorant. Why 
should any different measure of greatness be 
insinuated into our thought of God ? No good 
reason, we are persuaded, can be alleged. 
Nothing can be accounted more worthy of Him 
than to be concerned for the moral common- 
wealth and for every member thereof. It de- 
grades the thought of God to picture Him as 
a sleeping Brahma, instead of regarding Him 
as the living God, touching every form of 
being, loving all that is worthy of being loved, 
and abhorring all that is worthy of being ab- 
horred. 10 

HI: The Christian Thought of God as Father 

While Christianity borrows, as has been ex- 
plained, cardinal elements from the Hebrew 

10 In a formal discrimination of divine attributes they may be 
ranged in two classes, the metaphysical and the ethical. The 
metaphysical attributes may be enumerated as unity, spirituality, 
immutability, omnipresence, eternity, omniscience, and omnipo- 
tence. The ethical attributes are righteousness and love. With 
righteousness holiness and justice may be conjoined. The tLree 
terms may be regarded as designating the same fundamental aspect 
of the divine nature from somewhat different points of view. 
Whatever may have been the sense attached to holiness in, 
Hebraic usage, in its English meaning it stresses stainless purity 
or absolute aloofness from moral corruption. The righteousness 
of God signifies that in His nature is the unimpeachable standard 
of right, and that His will is always in absolute accord with that 
standard. The attribute of justice connects with the same con- 
ception a more distinct emphasis upon the executive function of 
God's righteous will in apportioning to moral agents the awards 
suitable to their character and conduct. As for love it is a 
principle or disposition of self-impartation for the benefit and 
beatification of another. According to the relation in which it 
is exercised it may be described under different terms. Considered 
in relation to creatures generally, it is goodness, good-will, or 
benevolence. Considered in relation to the sinful and disobedient, 
it is mercy and long-suffering. Viewed in relation to those who 
are so in affinity with God as properly to be called His children, 
it is love in the sense of complacency and of spiritual union and 
communion. 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 143 

conception, it cannot be said to stop on the 
plane of Hebrew thinking. By further de- 
velopment, or by incomparable illustration, it 
broadens and irradiates the idea of God. The 
Gospels bring us, so to speak, into a new at- 
mosphere. They have a message beyond that 
which even the prophets and the psalmists 
were able to give. They present God in a 
more amiable light, make Him more approach- 
able, and invite to a more homelike feeling in 
His presence. To sum up the advanced point 
of view in a word, we may say that the Gos- 
pels are permeated with the thought of the 
fatherhood of God in His relations to men. 
The Old Testament was indeed on the way to 
this conception. It reached the thought that 
God stood in a fatherly relation to the chosen 
nation, or to the king as the representative of 
the nation. Here and there the better thought 
that the individual as such is entitled to look 
to God as Father may be implied in the Old 
Testament statements. Still it is in the New 
Testament revelations that this truth first at- 
tains the rank of a pervasive and controlling 
conviction. 

The Gospel view of the divine fatherhood 
had a practical and not merely a theoretical 
ground. That ground was the consciousness 



144 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of Christ. He had a perfectly luminous sense 
of His filial relation. He knew Himself as the 
beloved Son, joined to the heavenly Father 
iby identity of purpose and will, giving to Him 
unlimited trust, doing always the things that 
pleased Him, and standing always in the light 
of His complacent love. He could say at 
every turn, "I am not alone, because the 
Father is with me." 

It would be impossible to imagine a more 
effective way of disclosing to the world the 
great truth of the divine fatherhood. From 
the image of perfect sonship, which we have in 
Christ, thought easily passes to its correlate. 
Indeed the filial in Christ directs us at once 
to the paternal in God. By all our faith in 
the spiritual clearness of the former we are 
compelled to believe that His perception was 
in full correspondence with the essential dis- 
position of the latter. His perception, there- 
fore, lends itself to general use. The image of 
the heavenly Father which was mirrored in 
his filial soul becomes unto all who will con- 
sider it a means of contemplating God in the 
beauty and attractiveness of his paternal char- 
acter. 

In His formal teaching Christ seeks ever to 
draw men to a share in his own serene confi- 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 145 

dence in the heavenly Father. Pointing to the 
delight which parents, notwithstanding the im- 
perfection and selfishness which cling to them, 
experience in bestowing gifts upon their chil- 
dren, He adds, "If ye then being evil know 
how to give good gifts unto your children, how 
much more shall your Father which is in heaven 
give good things to them that ask Him." n 
He assures His disciples that so long as they 
fulfill the supreme duty of seeking first the 
kingdom of God and His righteousness, it is 
needless to harbor an anxious thought about 
the temporal stores of the morrow. 12 The 
heavenly Father who feeds the birds and 
clothes with more than Solomonic glory the 
short-lived flower of the field will not neglect 
to provide for His children. In graphic ex- 
pression of the minuteness of the care which 
aims at their protection and well-being, Christ 
declares that the very hairs upon their heads 
are numbered by the heavenly Father. He 
invites them, furthermore, to see in all His 
own readiness for self-sacrifice and affection- 
ate fellowship an image of the Father's dispo- 
sition toward them. If He pictures Himself 
as the good shepherd, ready to lay down His 
life for the sheep, He adds: "Therefore doth 

"Matt, vii, 11. 
"Matt, vi, 25-34. 



146 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

my Father love me because I lay down my 
life." If He declares that He will come and 
manifest Himself to the obedient disciple, He 
declares also that the Father will come to the 
same disciple and take up His abode with 
him. 13 

We should hardly expect the New Testa- 
ment epistles to present the thought of the di- 
vine fatherhood in quite as genial a manner as 
do the Gospels, since Christ in His matchless 
filial consciousness was the matchless expositor 
of divine fatherhood. Still it is no faint or 
lifeless expression of this truth that meets us 
in the messages of the apostles. Paul indi- 
cated clearly enough that he felt the glow of it 
when he described the privilege and experi- 
ence of the believer in these words: "Ye re- 
ceived not the spirit of bondage again unto 
fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, 
whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit 
Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that 
we are the children of God." 14 John showed 
that he was no stranger to the same truth when 
he exclaimed, "Behold what manner of love 
the Father hath bestowed upon us that we 
should be called the children of God." 15 The 

13 John x, 17 ; John xiv, 23. 
"Rom. viii, 15, 16. 
16 1 John iii, 1. 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 147 

author of the Epistle to the Hebrews gave evi- 
dence of a like conviction when he instructed 
his readers to find in their very tribulations a 
token of the fatherly interest of the God who 
is wont to chasten His children for their own 
profit. 16 The truth of the divine fatherhood 
runs indeed through the New Testament, 
though one needs to get near the Christ in 
order to be cognizant of its warmest pulsations. 
The question has been raised whether in 
New Testament thought the divine fatherhood 
is made coextensive with the race. If one rests 
in the letter of certain sentences, he can doubt- 
less make out somewhat of a case for the nega- 
tive side. Mention is made of the wicked as 
holding a filial relation to Satan rather than to 
God. 17 Stress is also placed upon the neces- 
sity of rebirth 18 — a form of words which may 
be regarded as implying that the estate of 
children of God is something to be acquired 
instead of being universally possessed. Still 
further, men are represented as gaining the 
right to become the sons of God by receiving 
the message of salvation. 19 Finally they are 
spoken of as receiving the adoption of sons. 20 
Such language seems to put a limitation upon 

18 Heb. xii, 7-11. 

17 John viii, 44. 
"John iii, 3-6. 

18 John i, 12. 
20 Gal. iv, 5. 



148 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

sonship, and this quite naturally may be re- 
garded as implying a limitation upon father- 
hood likewise. 

Still, it would do injustice to the scriptural 
teaching to restrict the fatherly relation of 
God on the ground of the sentences just cited. 
God may be, in an important sense, fatherly 
toward those who are not filial toward Him. 
The New Testament implies as much, and it 
is quite legitimate to say that the undercurrent 
of its thought is on the side of the universality 
of the divine fatherhood. As has been ob- 
served, Christ affirmed identity of disposition 
between Himself and the Father. He de- 
scribed His revelation to be the seeking and 
the saving of the lost. He showed by His 
deeds that His heart went out toward the sin- 
ful and the unworthy. He thus gave, accord- 
ing to His own interpretation, a distinct ob- 
ject-lesson on the kindly disposition of God 
toward the undeserving. More than this, He 
explicitly declared in the parable of the prodi- 
gal son, and in the related parables, that God 
has fatherly compassion for the wayward, and 
that there is joy in His presence over one sin- 
ner who repenteth. With a like breadth of 
meaning He represented the redeeming love 
of God as embracing the world, and as setting 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 149 

its free bounty within the reach of everyone 
who will put himself in a receptive attitude. 
This amounts to an unmistakable affirmation 
that in essential disposition God is Father to 
the whole race. Nor is this affirmation out of 
harmony with the stress that is put upon the 
necessity that men should enter into the spir- 
itual estate of children. In many cases they 
do not act like children of God; they do not 
cherish the disposition of true children; judged 
by their ruling choices they may even be worthy 
to be called rather children of Satan than chil- 
dren of God. Nevertheless, so long as they 
have unextinguished capacities for good they 
are potentially children of the Divine Father. 
In consideration of this remaining potentiality 
of goodness they are the objects of His com- 
passionate and loving interest. His attitude 
is not overdrawn when He is represented as 
standing in a fatherly relation to them. They 
are doubtless sadly in need of becoming chil- 
dren in spiritual disposition. He is already 
a Father as regards the deep impulses of fa- 
therly pity and love, else the reason why He 
should be willing to do so much for them re- 
mains an insoluble enigma. 

What has been said does not, of course, sig- 
nify that God occupies precisely the same at- 



150 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

titude toward the rebellious and toward the 
obedient. His ethical intensity makes this 
utterly impossible. He delights in the dutiful 
child. He welcomes him to the light of His 
complacent love. This much He cannot do 
for the still unrepentant sinner. He abhors his 
wrong disposition and defilement. Still, as 
cognizant of a possibility of separating the 
sinner from his sin, He embraces him in His 
compassionate love. In this sense the Chris- 
tian teaching pronounces God the Father of 
men universally. 

It will be readily inferred from statements 
previously made that the gospel stress upon 
the fatherhood of God does not imply that His 
righteous sovereignty is put out of sight or in 
anywise dimmed. Fatherhood in this connec- 
tion is not a name for weak amiability. It 
means all of tenderness, compassion and love 
that our minds can conceive, and much more. 
But these subsist together with an infinite re- 
gard for righteousness and never override its 
demands. Indeed love in its best range can- 
not be thought of as colliding with righteous- 
ness, as has been remarked, for love seeks well- 
being, and the highest well-being cannot exist 
apart from righteousness. There is thus in 
the Christian thought of God a combination 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 151 

of the infinitely amiable and the infinitely rev- 
erend. He is no less a father because He is 
the righteous sovereign, and no less the right- 
eous sovereign because He is a father. He has 
patience and superabundance of grace to help 
away from sin ; but the authoritative messenger 
of His grace Himself warns us that the incor- 
rigibly wicked must ultimately be left with- 
out any refuge. 

IV: The Christian View of Prayer as Shaped by 
the Recognition of the Fatherhood of God 

The representation of God as Father is 
closely related to the Christian conception of 
prayer. According to that conception prayer 
is the trustful approach of the child to the su- 
preme Father, and the humble confident pres- 
entation to Him of heartfelt needs. So Christ 
described it, not only in the form of petition 
which He gave to His disciples, but also in 
the distinct appeal to the parental relation 
which He employed when He sought to 
awaken in those disciples full confidence in 
bringing forward their requests. 

In the gospel view prayer is no piece of ma- 
gic or merit-winning performance. It is the 
simple, unsophisticated, normal attitude of 



152 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

the dependent member of the great spiritual 
household, who feels and acknowledges his 
need. Taken in this character its propriety is 
unassailable, at least if the dependence of men 
and the fatherhood of God are to be accepted. 
Doubtless it has sometimes been imagined that 
the reign of law puts a veto upon the efficacy 
of prayer. But so far is the conception of law 
from being antagonistic to prayer that it is 
actually helpful toward an understanding of 
its value. There is no law beyond, or inde- 
pendent of, God ; and why should it not be the 
habit or law of His will to respond graciously 
to the trustful approaches of a child? Would 
it illustrate the reign of law if a child, who 
hides away morosely in a dark corner of the 
house, should get precisely the same benefits 
from the filial relation as does the one who 
comes confidingly into the presence of par- 
ents? It is the demand of law that where the 
conditions are varied the results should also 
be varied. True prayer brings an important 
modifying condition into the life. It opens 
up such connections with the higher sphere 
that it is perfectly reasonable to believe that 
it becomes the channel for the incoming of 
precious benefits. God is not grudging. His 
bounty is large and free. Prayer, as expand- 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 153 

ing the soul in worshipful contemplation and 
pure aspiration, prepares for the reception of 
this bounty. 



V: The Christian Belief in God's Benevolent Ride 
or Providence 

The gospel picture of God's disposition and 
relation to men implies evidently a minute and 
all-embracing providence. As has been seen, 
we are invited to think of the heavenly Father 
as one who notes the fall of the sparrow and 
numbers the very hairs upon the heads of His 
children. Now, it must be admitted that ap- 
pearances do not always harmonize with such 
a conception of divine providence. In fact, 
almost any life includes experiences which 
suggest the unheeding attitude on the part of 
God. He seems to hide Himself just at the 
point where He is most needed. The rescu- 
ing hand fails to be outstretched, and disaster 
is left to bring its full measure of pain and 
wreckage. A pessimistic temper can un- 
doubtedly find enough with which to gratify 
its appetite for the somber and doleful. Never- 
theless we are persuaded that it is the more 
reasonable, as well as the happier, disposition 
which keeps in sympathy with the gospel view 



154 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of divine providence. Over against the trouble- 
some and enigmatic in human experience we 
may place such considerations as the follow- 
ing: 

1. There is a general impress of benevo- 
lence upon the order of the world as related to 
the human family. The days when things have 
a genial and kindly aspect greatly prepon- 
derate over those which are associated with 
violence and terror. Moreover, elements of 
asperity in men's surroundings may be re- 
garded as having a disciplinary office. In the 
ministry of discipline by a scheme of law this 
or that individual may suffer unduly, and yet 
the general result be such as might be aimed 
at by benevolence. 

2. There is no demand to pass judgment on 
divine providence, as though it was its purpose 
to settle all accounts with the individual in 
the brief span of this life. Opportunities for 
compensation may be held in reserve for those 
who seem to have had more than their suit- 
able portion of the bitter cup. 

3. Inasmuch as God is not the sole agent 
in the world, much of the evil that men endure 
is by no means chargeable to His supervision. 
There is no reason for supposing that He 
could prevent the ills which misdirected free 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 155 

agency induces, without resorting to a violent 
repression which would make the total result 
of human history less valuable than that which 
is actually being achieved. 

4. The worth of the ideal of a God who 
exercises a perfectly kindly and righteous 
providence commends it to our acceptance. 
This is not equivalent to saying that a con- 
ception which happens to be pleasing to us 
must therefore be true. The ideal in question 
is one that we cleave to in our best moods; 
it is inspiring and ethically ennobling. By all 
our faith, therefore, in that trustworthiness of 
our intellectual and ethical constitution, which 
we are practically compelled to admit in order 
to get any standing ground, we are authorized 
to give credit to this ideal. To deny it in- 
volves a sort of suicidal thrust at what is rec- 
ognized to be of the highest dignity and worth 
in our own natures. 

5. The gospel ideal of the God of provi- 
dence is commended to us by all the grounds 
of faith in the clearness of Christ's spiritual 
vision. These grounds need not be stated here, 
as they have already been given at length. 
They include all that can be said for the con- 
clusion that Christ was the impersonation of 
the moral ideal and was intrusted with an 



156 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

extraordinary mission to the race. One who 
finds this conclusion to be well established 
must confess himself to be well anchored to 
faith in the rule of God as the universal Father. 
He will of course encounter enigmas, but he 
will not be disheartened or drawn into skepti- 
cism by them. For the dissipation of the more 
persistent shadows he will be content to wait 
for the dawning of the perfect and eternal day. 

VI: The Christian Conception of the Essential 
Relation of Christ to the Heavenly Father 

In treating of the "Lordship" of Christ ref- 
erence was made to texts which are pertinent 
to the theme of this section. A limited num- 
ber of citations will, therefore, suffice in the 
present connection. We wish to adduce the 
most significant testimonies from three great 
divisions of the New Testament, namely, the 
Johannine writings, the Pauline Epistles, and 
the first three lives of Christ, commonly men- 
tioned as the Synoptical Gospels. 

By the general consent of scholarship the 
Gospel of John ascribes a transcendent son- 
ship to Christ. In its opening verses it is de- 
clared that He was in the beginning with 
God, that all things were made by Him, that 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 157 

He had life in Himself, which life was the 
light of men. In the progress of the Gospel 
He is represented as vividly conscious of a 
special relation to the Father. Words like 
these are credited to Him: "The Father loveth 
the Son, and hath given all things into His 
hand. ... As the Father raiseth the dead, 
and quickeneth them, even so the Son also 
quickeneth whom He will. For neither 
doth the Father judge any man, but hath given 
all judgment unto the Son, that all may honor 
the Son even as they honor the Father." A 
transcendent order of consciousness is also 
evidenced by the language which Christ uses 
relative to sending the Comforter, the Spirit of 
Truth. To speak thus of sending a divine 
agent surely would be ill-matched with any- 
thing less than a sense of a personal divine 
standing. The same standing is furthermore 
very strikingly indicated in the spiritual de- 
pendence of men upon Himself as asserted 
both in His own discourse and in discourse 
about Him. What could be more unequivocal 
in import than these sentences? "I am the vine, 
ye are the branches. He that abideth in me 
and I in him, the same beareth much fruit ; for 
apart from me ye can do nothing. . . . The 
witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal 



158 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

life, and this life is in His Son; he that hath 
the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son 
hath not life." 21 

The writings of Paul evince substantially 
the same conviction as to the nature and rank 
of the Son which is brought out so clearly in 
the Johannine Gospel and Epistles. The 
apostle affirms of Christ: "In Him were all 
things created, in the heavens and upon the 
earth, things visible and invisible, whether 
thrones or dominions or principalities or 
powers; all things have been created through 
Him and unto Him; and He is before all 
things, and in Him all things consist." The 
divine form is said to be appropriate to Him, 
and He is represented as the judge of the race, 
as the supreme object of aspiration, and as the 
one foundation of the spiritual edifice. 22 In 
the face of such a line of ascriptions to his 
Lord, it is quite evident that the apostle had 
no intention of assigning a creaturely rank to 
Him when he spoke of Him as the first born 

of creation — irpuroTOKos wavr)* KTiveus (Col. i, 15). 

As Von Soden remarks the genitive here is not 
partitive, since in that event the form would be 
Traces Trjs Kriaeois but it is rather the comparative 

21 John i, 1-4, iii, 35, v, 20-23, xv, 26, xv, 5 ; 1 John v, 11, 12, 
23 Col. i, 16, 17; Phil, ii, 6,,i, 21-23, iii, 8, 9 ; 1 Cor. iii, 11; 
2 Cor. v, 10. 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 159 

genitive. "The meaning is, Christ is there be- 
fore every creature. Christ accordingly does 
not fall under the category of the creature." 

It has sometimes been alleged that the 
Synoptical Gospels are widely contrasted 
with the Johannine and Pauline writings in 
their lack of tribute to the divine sonship of 
Christ. But this judgment seems to have been 
passing out of vogue among scholars in recent 
decades, and those who wish to eliminate the 
force of the testimonies in these writings to 
Christ's transcendent relationship find no ex- 
pedient available for that purpose except a 
challenging of the historicity of the relevant 
texts. This is a very easy thing to do ; but it 
is not so easy to vanquish the impression of re- 
ality which the total representation of the 
deeds and words of the Master in the concur- 
ring reports of the evangelists continues, age 
after age, to make upon the minds of men who 
are quite remote from the plane of unbalanced 
enthusiasm. In any case the testimony to the 
lofty rank of Christ is here in no scanty meas- 
ure. It is to be noticed in the first place that 
He calls Himself the Son where the connec- 
tion obviously implies that He is characteriz- 
ing His relation to the Father. In no in- 
stance does He place Himself on a parity with 



160 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

men in respect of sonship. He speaks always 
of my Father and never of our Father when 
His own relation is in question. The form of 
prayer which He dictated to His disciples 
makes no exception; for that was specifically 
a prayer for their use and not one in which 
He is represented to have joined with them. 
Again an equivalent of the lofty prerogative 
mentioned in John's Gospel, in the reference to 
the sending of the Comforter, is ascribed to 
Christ, in that He is represented as one who is 
to baptize with the Holy Spirit. Further He 
asserts for Himself a decidedly exceptional 
position in this remarkable declaration: "All 
things have been delivered unto me of my 
Father, and no one knoweth the Son save the 
Father; neither doth any know the Father 
save the Son, and He to whomsoever the Son 
willeth to reveal Him." Once more, in claim- 
ing lordship over the Sabbath and the preroga- 
tive to forgive sins Christ indicated His con- 
sciousness that in an extraordinary sense He 
was the Son of God. 23 

Other parts of the New Testament besides 
these three main divisions make a contribution 
quite in line with their testimonies. In both 

23 Matt, vii, 21, xxiv, 36, iii, 11 ; Mark i, 8 ; Luke xxiv, 49 ; 
Matt, xi, 27 ; Luke x, 22 ; Matt, xii, 8, ix, 2-6 ; Mark ii, 5-11 ; 
Luke v, 20-24. 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 161 

the epistle to the Hebrews and the Book of 
Revelation are very lofty ascriptions to Christ. 



VII: The Christian Teaching on the Nature and 
Office of the Holy Spirit 

The New Testament in an abundant list of 
passages refers to the Holy Spirit's works of 
intelligence, and such works of intelligence 
as manifestly belong to a divine rather than 
to a creaturely range. 24 This name, there- 
fore, plainly designates an agent at once 
personal and divine. The divinity of the 
Holy Spirit is furthermore attested by the 
enormity of the sin against Him. 25 The Chris- 
tian consciousness also bears a cogent testimony 
to His divinity. No work can appear to the 
Christian more truly divine than the renewal or 
sanctification of the soul. Accordingly, he 
cannot consent to rate the agent of that work 
as less than divine. Within the circle of vital 
Christian experience no question can rationally 
be made about the divinity of the Holy Spirit. 

While the personality of the Holy Spirit 
is not subject to doubt, a question respecting 

2 * Matt, x, 20 ; Mark xiii, 11 ; Luke xii, 11, 12 ; John xiv, 16, 17 ; 
Acts i, 16, ii, 4, v, 32, x, 19, xiii, 2, xvi, 6, xx, 23; Rom. viii, 
14-16, 26, 27 ; 1 Cor. ii, 10, 11, xii, 3-11 ; 1 John v, 7, 8. 

25 Matt, xii, 31, 32 ; Mark iii, 28, 29 ; Luke xii, 10 ; Acts v, 3, 9 ; 
Eph. iv, 30. 



162 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

His distinct personality is not so unequivo- 
cally excluded. In many of the scriptural 
passages the Spirit to whom works of intelli- 
gence are ascribed is not so fully distinguished 
but that He might be regarded as standing 
for God acting in a particular way or sphere ; 
in other words, as denoting God in a particular 
order of manifestations rather than a distinct 
person in the Godhead; or at least as denot- 
ing no other Divine Person than the Father 
or the Son. But there are a number of pas- 
sages that cannot with propriety be denied a 
reference to a distinct Divine Person. Not 
only in John's discourse about the Comforter, 26 
but also in the baptismal formula, 27 and in vari- 
ous sentences of the Epistles, 28 the spirit is co- 
ordinated with the Father and the Son in a 
manner which implies a personality in some 
real sense distinct. 

In respect of office, the Holy Spirit is rep- 
resented as having to do with all that enters 
into the spiritual equipment and transforma- 
tion of men. He empowers for extraordinary 
works and special service. 29 He is the source 
of inspired speech. 30 He is the efficient agent 

28 John xiv, 16, 17, 26, xvi, 7-13. 
27 Matt, xxviii, 19. 

^Eph. ii, 18, 22, iv, 4-6; 1 Cor. xii, 4-6; 2 Cor. xiii, 14; 
1 Pet. i, 2. 

28 1 Cor. xii, 4-11. 
30 Luke xii, 12. 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 163 

in regeneration, 31 and the spring of filial con- 
fidence toward God. 32 He sheds abroad the 
love of God in the heart. 33 He assists to a 
sense of companionship with the invisible 
Saviour by taking the things of Christ and 
showing them unto the disciple. 34 He consoles 
and illuminates. 35 The fruits of His indwell- 
ing are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kind- 
ness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, tem- 
perance. 36 

VIII: Completion of the Christian Conception of 
God in tlie Doctrine of the Trmity 

As appears from the foregoing discussion, 
and as has been confessed by others than repre- 
sentatives of Trinitarian communions, New 
Testament phraseology has a Trinitarian cast, 
in that it incloses a recurring reference to 
Father, Son, and Spirit. It may be con- 
tended, no doubt, that these three names can 
be understood as representing three aspects, 
or forms of manifestation, of one fundamental 
entity. But there is a double objection to 
this proposition. It implies that something 

81 John iii, 5-8. 

32 Rom. viii, 16. 

83 Rom. v, 5. 

"John xv, 26, xvi, 13, 14. 

"John xiv, 16-18, 26. 

86 Gal. v, 22, 23. 



164 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

other than the personal serves as the back- 
ground of the personal and is to be rated as the 
ultimate reality, whereas sound theistic phi- 
losophy will not admit that the personal is 
derivative or secondary. Furthermore the 
Scriptures give no countenance to the notion 
that there is anything back of the Divine 
Father to which He is related as a form of 
manifestation. On the contrary, He is Him- 
self depicted as the ultimate, the eternal source 
whence issue eternally the Son and the Spirit. 
This representation might open an oppor- 
tunity to characterize the Son and the Spirit 
as manifestations of the Father. In one sense 
they undoubtedly are. The important fact, 
however, is to be noted that the sense is not 
simply an impersonal one. The Bible assigns 
to the Son and the Spirit characteristics which 
we associate with personalities, and makes 
them subjects for fellowship with the Father. 
This is abundantly true of the former. The 
Spirit is not so definitely pictured as a subject 
for fellowship, but is assigned various char- 
acteristics belonging to personalities. Occa- 
sion, therefore, arises for asserting real dis- 
tinctions in the Godhead, such distinctions as 
catholic Christian thought has counted it ad- 
missible to define as "personal," selecting this 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 165 

term as the best approximation to a descrip- 
tion of that which, as unique, is confessedly- 
above the reach of full and exact exposition. 
A trinitarian conception of this order is 
not destitute of support in the domain of rea- 
son or philosophy. It can be urged that in the 
creaturely sphere there is much to suggest the 
conclusion that a species of trinality is char- 
acteristic of the more complete being and the 
more complete process, and that accordingly 
the all-perfect Being may be presumed to be 
in a highly important sense trinal or triune, 
A more weighty consideration lies in a rational 
view of the demands of self-sufficiency in God. 
If He is to be accounted perfect in nature and 
experience, He must be regarded as having 
adequate resources in Himself for meeting all 
the demands of the infinitely perfect life. 
Among these demands the ethical rank fore- 
most, and since love is central to ethical values 
it must be regarded as central to the life of 
God. But love demands fellowship, and per- 
fect fellowship subsists only between persons 
who are essentially in the same plane. The 
infinite outflow of divine affection gets at once 
its suitable object and its suitable response only 
as there is a plurality of Divine Persons. 
Creatures in their imperfection and limitation 



166 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

make an inadequate object. In spite of them 
a unipersonal God must remain forever in 
comparative solitude. 

Philosophy has thus its word in behalf of the 
trinitarian representation. The most distinct 
basis, however, for that representation is con- 
tained in revelation. The Scriptures are per- 
meated with the thought of Father, Son, and 
Spirit. A distinct trinality is unquestionably 
characteristic of God in the sphere of manifes- 
tation; and what is so thoroughly character- 
istic of God in the sphere of manifestation 
may rationally be supposed to be fundamen- 
tally grounded, in other words, to rest upon 
eternal and necessary distinctions. 

It is by no means to be overlooked that such 
trinality as Christian thought affirms of God 
is entirely compatible with a fundamental 
unity. The trinality does not imply that there 
are independent Divine Persons. The Son 
does not exist, and cannot exist, apart from 
the Father any more than the radiance of 
light can exist after the extinction of the light. 
Equally the Holy Spirit cannot exist apart 
from the Father and the Son. Furthermore, 
all conflict in respect of feeling, willing and 
acting on the part of the Divine Persons is 
excluded. The Son can no more be at vari- 



TEACHING RESPECTING GOD 167 

ance with the Father than perfect wisdom can 
contradict perfect wisdom, or perfect holiness 
contradict perfect holiness. In like manner 
there cannot be the least approach to dis- 
agreement between the Holy Spirit and the 
Father, or between the Holy Spirit and the 
Son. A harmony like that of the sweetest 
and most ravishing music — the incomparable 
symphony — ever prevails between these Divine 
Persons. God is not less a unity because He is 
a unity which includes diversity. 

In connection with this theme dogmatic dis- 
cretion will put a curb on the formulating pro- 
pensity. To impose upon any one the tortur- 
ing artificialities of the so-called "Athanasian 
Creed " 37 is to indulge in a most unwarrant- 
able persecution. As is the case with all at- 
tempts to explore ultimate reality, the effort 
to expound the Trinity necessarily impinges 
upon profound mystery. Perhaps the best 
illustrative analogy to which we can appeal 
is to be found in the facts of divine immanence 
as very commonly recognized in enlightened 
religious thought. God, we may say, is imma- 
nent in us according to our very limited ca- 
pacity. In the Son and the Spirit the Father 

91 It has long been recognized that Athanasius is to be excused 
from having had anything to do with it. An incomparably better 
specimen of creedal propriety is supplied by the Nicene Creed. 



168 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

is immanent according to their measureless ca- 
pacity. He is immanent in us by His own 
choice, upon which our very being depends. 
He is immanent in the Son and the Spirit by 
an eternal necessity. 



CHAPTER V: THE CHRISTIAN 

TEACHING RESPECTING THE 

NATURE AND CONDITION 

OF MAN 

/: The Biblical and Rational View of Man's Origm 

A striking way of expressing his thought on 
the origin of man is employed by the author 
of the third Gospel. After running back the 
genealogy of Jesus to Adam, he defines this 
first man as the "son of God." In the first 
chapter of Genesis it is said that God made 
man in his own image and likeness. These two 
representations contain essentially the same 
meaning. They imply that man's advent into 
the world was determined by the intelligence 
and will of the Supreme Person, that he was 
endowed with intellectual and ethical attributes 
which reflect in important respects the nature 
of this Person, that accordingly the one is 
qualified for a relation of fellowship with the 
other analogous to that of the child with the 
father. 

We may add that this is substantially all 

169 



170 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

that Christianity has any interest to establish 
respecting the primal origin of man. It can- 
not be seen to require more even if it be re- 
garded as building distinctly upon a biblical 
basis. For, while the Bible as a whole ever 
keeps in view man's intimate relation with 
God, it does not rear any important super- 
structure upon the details of the story of crea- 
tion and the first experiences of the human 
family. In fact, it almost wholly ignores them. 
The root ideas in these early narratives — such 
as the absolute supremacy of God, man's re- 
flection of the divine nature in his intellectual 
and ethical being, the sanctity of marriage, 
and the initiation of moral evil by an abuse 
of freedom — are indeed built upon either im- 
plicitly or explicitly to a very considerable ex- 
tent. But the case is quite otherwise with the 
circumstantial items. It is not discoverable that 
the Old Testament, aside from one or two un- 
certain instances, 1 refers back to a single special 
item contained in the creation narrative or in 
the account of the life in paradise. The New 
Testament preserves a nearly equal silence. 
Most of the few references to the first chapters 
of Genesis in which it indulges are simply for 
illustrative purposes. The reference which 

1 Job xxxi, 33 ; Hosea, vi, 7. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 171 

has by far the most doctrinal significance is 
that in which Paul contrasts Adam as the 
fountainhead of sin and death with the right- 
eous and life-bearing Christ, 2 and here it is to 
be observed that the essential propriety of the 
reference is in no wise dependent upon any 
outward particulars of a primitive history. 
Let it be understood that Adam stands for the 
first man who was the first sinner of the race, 
and the Pauline argument would have just 
the same validity, even though a totally differ- 
ent environment from the one sketched in 
Genesis should be pictured for the first trans- 
gressor. That Paul spoke of him as Adam 
cannot, of course, be counted of any impor- 
tance; in fact, "Adam" in the Hebrew is just 
a name for "man." In the recorded words of 
Christ the name of Adam is not so much as 
mentioned, nor is there a single distinct refer- 
ence to any item associated with paradise or 
with the fall of the first parents. We are 
entirely warranted, therefore, in affirming that 
a theology which goes beyond the root ideas, 
or fundamental religious conceptions, of the 
first part of Genesis, and builds upon the 
special items of those primitive stories as neces- 
sary foundations, goes distinctly contrary to 

2 Rom. v, 12-19 ; 1 Cor. xv, 21, 22. 



N 



m THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

the example of the Bible itself. The real bib- 
lical system does not depend upon those items. 
They could be put out of sight without detract- 
ing from the grounds on which that system 
is approved to a rational faith. 

What has been stated amounts to a declara- 
tion that Christianity has no occasion to quar- 
rel with any theory of the origin of the race 
which the facts seem to demand. If continued 
investigation should thoroughly establish the 
doctrine of evolution as containing the true 
theory of the origin of organic nature, the re- 
sult would be perfectly agreeable to Christian- 
ity. Evolution, as a scientific theory, does not 
contradict anything which the Christian reli- 
gion is concerned to maintain. It may advise 
that certain picturesque details of the primitive 
stories respecting the world and its inhabitants 
should not be taken as literal description. But 
that is of the very slightest consequence. The 
thought of God as Creator is not damaged in 
the least by evolution theory pure and simple. 
For, obviously, method cannot take the place 
of an agent, and the scientific theory of evo- 
lution is simply a theory as to method. The 
Christian is perfectly free to assume that the 
evolutionary process is the method chosen of 
God for bringing in the ascending series of 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 173 

organic forms ; that He is the all-powerful and 
omnipresent agent who initiated the process, 
who controls its continuous operation, and who 
leads it on to results worthy of His wisdom 
and might. 

As the doctrine of evolution in its proper 
character does not deny the personal Creator, 
nor curtail His glory, so it conflicts with noth- 
ing which Christianity is interested to affirm 
respecting man. Whatever may have been the 
antecedents of man, he must be judged to be 
what he gives evidence of being. A partial, 
essentially exterior, view of his antecedents 
can never afford any certain measure of his 
nature, as not necessarily including all that 
contributes to his constitution. Now science 
takes this partial view. It notes the apparent 
connection of things, or their relations in re- 
spect of time, place, and resembling features. 
The more interior bond of connection, the ef- 
ficiency of the immanent Divine Agent, it 
cannot, in the use of its own resources, discover 
or adequately estimate. Leaving the field per- 
fectly open for the operation of the efficiency 
in question, it evidently leaves it open for con- 
veying to man, or bringing to manifestation 
in him, this or that characteristic over and 
above those which may be discoverable in his 



174 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

antecedents. There is no good reason why he 
should be measured by his antecedents, at least 
to the exclusion of the one great antecedent, 
the efficiency of the immanent Divine Agent. 
In the working of that efficiency an intelligible 
basis is supplied for all the higher characteris- 
tics of man which distinguish him from other 
species of living beings, whatever may have 
been his historical relation to any of those 
species. Let the process be supposed to have 
taken account of this or that factor or link in 
the chain of organic lif e, the truth still remains, 
in full certitude and significance, that God 
made man to be a child of God. 

It is not denied that the theory of evolution 
may be so construed as to compromise the dig- 
nity of man and to contradict the Christian 
view of his place and destiny. But in that case 
it becomes other than scientific. So long as the 
theory is not compounded with some sweeping 
assumption, borrowed from an adventurous 
anti-theistic philosophy, it antagonizes no real 
interest of the Christian religion. That reli- 
gion may properly adopt a neutral attitude, be- 
ing content with the well-approved conclusion 
that man came from God, and that each hu- 
man individual is born potentially a child of 
God. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 175 

//: Man's Dual Nature 

It is a ruling conception in the Scriptures 
that man is possessed at once of a sensuous and 
a supersensuous nature. The latter is de- 
scribed by various terms in both Testaments, 
notably by soul, spirit, and heart. A compari- 
son of passages shows that, while these differ- 
ent terms do not have precisely the same range 
of significance, they are treated very largely as 
synonymous. The conclusion must be that the 
sacred writers employed them in a popular 
manner and without a thought of mapping out 
in a scientific way man's inner nature. 

Paul, it may be granted, seems at first sight 
to present an exception. He shows quite gen- 
erally a preference for the term "spirit" when 
speaking of man's higher nature. In certain 
connections also he makes a contrast between 
spirit and soul, to a relative disparagement of 
the latter. Thus in the fifteenth chapter of 
First Corinthians he puts the psychical (or 
soulish) man in very unfavorable comparison 
with the pneumatic (or spiritual) man. Such 
usage naturally suggests that Paul may have 
regarded man as a threefold being, or as pos- 
sessed of body, soul, and spirit. But, on the 
other hand, it is to be noticed that the apostle 



176 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

does not uniformly use the term soul in the 
restricted or unfavorable sense. 3 In any case, 
he cannot be alleged to have dogmatically in- 
culcated the threefold division of man's nature. 
As for the New Testament outside of the 
of the Pauline epistles, it not infrequently em- 
ploys the word soul as if it were understood 
to embrace the entire supersensuous nature of 
man. We find, then, a certain ground for 
supposing only a relative distinction between 
soul and spirit, both terms having reference 
to the same supersensuous essence, but "spirit" 
being used prevailingly to name that essence 
in its higher or God ward relations, and "soul" 
being sometimes employed, though not con- 
stantly, to designate the same essence in its 
bodily or earthward connections. Taken as a 
whole, biblical teaching in no wise requires us 
to regard the soul as substantially distinct 
from the spirit and interposed between it and 
the body. It leaves us free to appeal to ra- 
tional grounds in deciding between the dual 
and the threefold division, or, as the technical 
phrase runs, between dichotomy and trichot- 
omy. 

Approaching the subject on this basis we 
may readily discover reasons for preferring 

8 Rom. ii, 9, xiii, 1 ; 2 Cor. i, 23 ; Phil, i, 27. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 17T 

the twofold division. It is more simple and 
intelligible. Between spirit and matter, 
sharply contrasted as they are in every respect, 
we are quite unable mentally to construct any 
mean. If the soul, therefore, is made essen- 
tially distinct from the spirit we seem to be 
under compulsion to construe it as a kind of 
subordinate spirit functionally intermediate 
between the body and the higher spirit. But in 
this character the soul, unless made purely in- 
strumental to the spirit, just as the body is, 
would seem to conflict with the demands of 
personal unity. Two real agents bound to- 
gether with the body cannot seem to meet the 
requirements of a unitary subject. At any 
rate they complicate the problem of personal 
unity. On the other hand, two instruments 
connected with one agent would seem contra- 
dictory to the principle of economy. The 
spirit might just as well be thought of as op- 
erating in connection with the body at first 
hand as through the medium of the soul. So 
the intermediate factor is discredited as a su- 
perfluity, and the twofold division claims the 
rational preference. 

From the Christian point of view man 
stands for the union of nature and spirit. The 
corporeal side of his being, though subordi- 



178 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

nated to the spiritual, is treated with high 
appreciation. Nowhere does the Bible pass 
upon the body a disparaging or condemnatory 
sentence. It draws an antithesis, it is true, in 
not a few instances between man's physical 
being and the majestic order of being which 
belongs to God. But the contrast is between 
the frail and evanescent on the one hand and 
the mighty and enduring on the other, not the 
contrast between the evil and the good. So it 
is depicted by the Old Testament writers. 
Describing man from this point of view the 
Psalmist exclaims: "As for man his days are 
as grass ; as a flower of the field, so he flourish- 
eth. For the wind passeth over it and it is 
gone; and the place thereof shall know it no 
more." 4 As in this, so in all similar strains in 
the ancient Jewish oracles it is simply the 
frailty of man as a physical subject which is 
emphatically portrayed. No condemnation 
attaches to him in that character. 

In the New Testament there is a line of ex- 
pressions which might perhaps be taken as 
representative of a different point of view. 
Paul, it must be admitted, described the flesh 
in various connections in such disparaging 
terms as the most radical exponent of ascetic 

4 Ps. ciii. 15, 16. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 179 

theory might be inclined to employ. "I know 
that in me," he says, "that is, in my flesh, 
dwelleth no good thing." "The mind of the 
flesh is enmity against God ; for it is not sub- 
ject to the law of God, neither indeed can it 
be." "The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and 
the spirit against the flesh; for these are con- 
trary to one another." 5 What did Paul mean 
by such declarations? A whole group of con- 
siderations makes it incredible that he meant 
to condemn man's sensuous nature as in itself 
sinful. (1) The apostle includes in his cata- 
logue of the works of the flesh various orders 
of sins which have no special association with 
the physical members. The natural inference 
is that by the flesh he meant something other 
than the mere instrument of the sensuous life. 
(2) The apostle indicates that he did not re- 
gard the flesh, in the character of material sub- 
stance, to be intrinsically evil, inasmuch as he 
conceives Christ both to have come in the flesh 
and to have been sinless. (3) He plainly con- 
tradicts the supposition that the flesh is essen- 
tially evil by representing it to be a subject 
for sanctification. (4) Ample reason for be- 
lieving that he repudiated the same supposi- 
tion is found in the fact that he characterizes 

6 Rom. vii, 18, viii, 7; Gal. v, 17. 



180 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

the body as worthy to be quickened by the 
Spirit of God, as fit to be offered to God in 
sacrifice or consecration, as being the temple 
of the Holy Spirit, as being a subject together 
with the soul and spirit for complete sancti- 
fication. 6 

Before such an array of evidence it is impos- 
sible to escape the conclusion that Paul in the 
connections in which he seems to attach an evil 
sense to the flesh had much more in mind than 
the simple physical being of man. By the 
flesh he meant not merely the body, or its pliable 
substance, but the unregenerate man who is so 
apt to use the bodily members in unworthy 
gratifications. 

In the measure of formal attention which 
Paul awards to the theme of the resurrection he 
pays greater tribute to the significance of the 
body than does any other New Testament 
writer. There is no occasion, however, to 
doubt that it was the common thought of the 
apostles and the entire early Church that the 
resurrection is to introduce men to an em- 
bodied existence. In some references to the 
resurrection, it may be granted, the stress is 
rather upon the coming forth of the dead into 
a sphere of vital existence than upon their 

6 Gal. v, 19-21; Rom. i, 3 ; Phil, ii, 8 ; 2 Cor. v, 21, vii, 1; 
Rom. yiii, 11, xii, 1 ; 1 Cor. vi, 19 ; 1 Thess. v, 23. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 181 

investment with bodies. This is true of promi- 
nent sayings of Christ. 7 But stress upon the 
former point — undeniably by far the more im- 
portant — involves no denial of the latter, so 
that there is a distinct balance in favor of re- 
garding the latter as representative of the 
New Testament way of thinking. Nor can it 
be seen that Christianity, as a rational system, 
is concerned to avoid this alternative. Ex- 
ternal nature is a vast and glorious field. It 
affords a grand theater for the display of the 
immeasurable resources of wisdom, power, 
and beauty which belong to the Divine Artist. 
May it not be, then, that it pertains to the 
ideal lif e for man, that he should be related by 
means of a superior type of body to a natural 
sphere of a more excellent type than has yet 
been disclosed to his imperfect vision. Rea- 
son certainly cannot forbid us to look for- 
ward to such a consummation, if revelation 
invites our anticipations toward that goal. 

HI: Man's Title to Immortality 

The evidence here adduced concerns the 
title normally belonging to man, and only 
that. It might be that the arguments which go 

7 Matt, xxii, 23-32; Mark xii, 18-27. 



182 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

to prove that immortality is the normal estate 
of all men depend upon qualities and rela- 
tionships which can either be earnestly culti- 
vated or rashly and stubbornly neglected and 
desecrated. In so far as they are conditioned 
in this way, it is evident that they can prove, 
not that all men will certainly possess immor- 
tality, but only that it is their appropriate and 
designed lot. 

A proof for immortality which is of very 
long standing is based upon the noble order of 
faculties and the capacity for growth belong- 
ing to the human soul. A being capable of ad- 
vancing along such high paths of knowledge 
and grand achievement ought not, it is legiti- 
mately felt, to be plunged into the endless 
night of cancelled or unconscious existence. 
The argument carries a strong persuasion, 
and ought to, for it is intrinsically weighty. 

Combining with this proof, and indeed fur- 
nishing for it a reliable ground — as affording 
a pledge that man is not a subject for mockery 
or gratuitous disappointment — is the maxi- 
mum evidence ever yet adduced. Stated in 
brief that proof is man's relation to God as 
held by genuine theism and especially Chris- 
tian theism. Genuine theism predicates a liv- 
ing, working God who is sufficiently interested 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 183 

in men to receive them into moral fellowship 
with Himself. As subjects of this fellowship 
they are logically candidates for an immortal 
life. Why should He who has immortality in 
Himself consign to dust and ashes those whom 
He has taken into moral fellowship ? A more 
incongruous outcome could hardly be imag- 
ined. Hence we find generally that where 
men have entertained anything like a theistic 
faith, they have been constrained to believe in 
immortality. This motive was clearly opera- 
tive in Israel. The prophetical conception of 
ethical fellowship with God did not permit the 
chosen people to rest upon the traditional no- 
tion of an empty life in Sheol, but urged them, 
as appears in later Judaism, to the hope of a 
vital existence in preparation beyond death and 
the grave. In the Gentile world also a kindred 
point of view has operated widely in the same 
direction. 

If theism in general has this potency, how 
much more efficient to nurture a living faith 
in immortality must be Christian theism, the 
representation of God as He was depicted in 
the illuminated consciousness of Jesus Christ. 
The whole record of Christ's words, as we have 
them in the Gospels, is a testimony to the fact 
that the immortal life is the designed and the 



184 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

appropriate destiny of men. Clear as the radi- 
ance of the brightest morning the truth shines 
forth that God stands to men as the Father 
in heaven, and that men are called to dwell 
before Him as children. They fall short of 
their birthright, and slide into an aberrant 
alienation, save as they entertain a vital filial 
consciousness toward God. Now what other 
language can this filial consciousness employ 
than that of the immortal hope? There is in 
truth no gainsaying of the argument of the 
apostle Paul, "If children, then heirs," heirs 
to something worthy of the paternal God to 
bestow, heirs to an inheritance that is incor- 
ruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. 
The Gospel portrait of God, as it emanated 
from the perfect filial consciousness of Jesus, 
positively forbids a doubt about the unfading 
inheritance in store for men. 

In concentrating emphasis upon the theistic 
truth, as it was taught by our Lord, we by no 
means design to slight the import of His res- 
urrection. It is our conviction, however, that 
the latter is auxiliary to the former rather 
than a satisfactory independent evidence. 
The mere fact of the resurrection of an indi- 
vidual would not necessarily guarantee the 
immortality of men generally. The great sig- 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 185 

nificance of the resurrection of Jesus is that 
it publishes unmistakably the will and the 
purpose of the paternal God. In breaking the 
bonds of death for the Son of His love, He 
demonstrated in very apprehensible form, both 
His power and His intention to vanquish 
death in behalf of all who stand in filial rela- 
tion to Himself. Taken in connection with 
the Gospel economy the triumph over the 
grave by the Captain of our salvation is a 
pledge of the triumph prepared for His fol- 
lowers. We are invited by the outstanding 
features of that economy to reckon ourselves 
joint heirs with Christ, and can repeat with 
all earnestness the words of the apostle Peter : 
'^Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who according to His great 
mercy begat us again to a living hope by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 8 
In the presence of the weighty proof which 
is furnished by theistic faith, and the divine 
pledge which is virtually afforded in the resur- 
rection of Jesus, there seems very scanty pro- 
priety in attempting to supplement from the 
transactions of the seance room. What re- 
liable evidence, in comparison, can the ghostly 
messages assumed to be whispered into the 

8 1 Peter i, 3. 



186 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ears of mediums, or the strange feats per- 
formed in the name of spirits, put into our 
possession? Expert investigators assure us 
that fraud has undoubtedly played a great 
part in these dimly-lighted transactions. They 
also render the judgment that many of the 
feats accomplished require no action of spirits, 
being sufficiently accounted for by super- 
normal powers, gifts of telepathy and clair- 
voyance, in the operating mediums. They 
further call attention to the fact that the 
spirits which are supposed to transmit the 
messages are evidently very limited or unre- 
liable sources of information, since they con- 
tradict one another egregiously respecting the 
other world and its belongings. Finally, even 
suppose some messages from the dead, dic- 
tated through spirits, should arrive, they 
would be a token of nothing more than sur- 
vival, not a proof of immortality. The lot of 
the dead might be, for all such proof, like 
that which the old Stoics assigned to them, 
namely, survival for a period only and then 
extinction of individual existence. Of really 
satisfactory proof of immortality the first in- 
stallment remains yet to be made through this 
instrumentality. 9 

9 In writing this section use has been made of portions of an 
article contributed to Zion's Herald. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 187 

IV: The Moral Outfit of Man 

As a moral personality man has a distinctive 
endowment in conscience. The fact of con- 
science publishes that he is built into the moral 
order of the universe, and can never place him- 
self outside of its domain. He may be moral, 
or he may be immoral, but so long as feeling 
and intelligence survive he cannot be simply 
non-moral. 10 

Conscience, if we take the term in the broad 
sense, includes three different elements : a per- 
ception of moral distinctions, a sense of obli- 
gation to the right as opposed to the wrong, 
and a feeling of self -approbation or self-con- 
demnation according as the act corresponds, 
or fails to correspond, with the judgment of 
right and wrong. 

The first of these three elements must be re- 
garded as indubitably constitutional, not in 
the sense that a man has from the start a well- 
rounded faculty of moral judgment, but that 
there is implicit in his nature a basis of certain 
moral perceptions. The facts of his moral ex- 
perience cannot be construed rationally on the 
supposition that he starts as a blank in respect 

10 The exposition on this theme agrees in substance with that 
given by the author in his "System of Christian Doctrine," 
Methodist Book Concern, New York. 



188 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of his moral being, any more than his intel- 
lectual experience can be construed without a 
reference to positive mental constituents. Let 
it be granted that perversities of moral judg- 
ment often occur, and that education mani- 
festly has a function to perform in relation to 
the moral sense ; an original endowment in the 
direction of true moral perception is not there- 
by denied. Were there no such endowment 
there would be no adequate basis for a con- 
sensus of moral judgments. But there evi- 
dently is such a basis. Men cannot come into 
any largeness of ethical life without realizing 
an essential community of ethical principles 
through no inconsiderable range. Indeed, 
there can be no development or even existence 
of moral personality without the existence, 
virtual or explicit, of a certain order of moral 
judgments. He who could not see that the 
good will as opposed to the malicious will, 
where there is no knowledge of injury re- 
ceived, is obligatory, or that kindness ought 
to be repaid by gratitude instead of hatred, 
would be described rather as a monstrosity 
than a representative of genuine humanity. 
Certain other judgments fall under imperative 
sanctions wherever they are soberly and dis- 
passionately considered. As Professor Sidg- 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 189 

wick remarks: "The propositions, 'I ought 
not to prefer a present lesser good to a future 
greater good,' and 'I ought not to prefer my 
own lesser good to the greater good of an- 
other' do present themselves as self-evident; 
as much, for example, as the mathematical 
axiom that 'if equals be added to equals, the 
whole will be equals/ " X1 NTow, a moral per- 
ception which inevitably appears with the de- 
veloping personality has just one adequate ex- 
planation. It is founded in man's moral con- 
stitution. To derive it from any order of 
external circumstances is to impute the greater 
to the less. As Professor A. B. Bruce has 
well argued it is not the product of social rela- 
tions or heredity any more than rationality is 
the product of language. 12 It founds society. 
Without a certain community of moral percep- 
tions on the part of its members, society would 
lack all true cohesion. It has, as society, no 
other authority than that of an aggregate of 
individual wills. If these wills are severally 
destitute of the guidance of certain moral per- 
ceptions, their aggregation can supply no 
trustworthy law of conduct. Society, as a 
moral community, can be constituted only out 
of units that have a common moral constituent. 

11 H. Sidgwick, "The Methods of Ethics," pp. 282, 283. 
""The Providential Order of the World," p. 39. 



190 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

That it does not make the morality of the 
individual, but has its moral character in its 
members, is clearly enough seen in the fact 
that, occasionally, a small company of earnest 
men, or even a single individual of exceptional 
character and gifts, will successfully challenge 
society on some special point and start the 
public current toward an improved moral per- 
ception. 

The point of view which is here being urged 
cannot properly be regarded as prejudiced 
by the assignment of a large role to evolution. 
Morality is not made to appear in consequence 
as unfixed or fortuitous. Evolution is not 
necessarily accounted a haphazard thing, 
something irreconcilable with the constitu- 
tional. Rather evolution has its basis in an 
intelligent world-ground, which is bent upon 
securing that the outcome of the historical 
process shall be righteousness, and to this end 
works toward such a common stock of con- 
victions as makes men truly men, beings ca- 
pable of moral association. To possess this 
stock belongs to their idea or pattern. With 
their normal development it is certain to be 
theirs, and in that sense is constitutional. If 
God is a living God, if He entertains any 
ends at all, instead of resting in deistic indif- 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 191 

ference, He must ordain an end of this kind, 
so that morality is not left in the field of the 
purely undirected or contingent. 

The constitutional character of the second 
element of conscience must be regarded as at 
least equally well established. Every man, 
whom his fellows would venture to rate as 
of sound mind, is certain that there is a right 
and a wrong, and that he is obligated to follow 
the one to the rejection of the other. This 
conviction, too, has its own distinctive char- 
acter. An attempt to translate it into some- 
thing else is sure to result in an unrecognizable 
substitute. It is not assuredly another name 
for desire and aversion founded on contrasted 
experiences of the pleasurable and the painful. 
The question of ethics is not what pleases, but 
what ought to please. Doubtless there is an 
underlying faith in every healthy spirit that, 
in the ultimate issue, righteousness cannot be 
really divorced from blessedness, and an op- 
posite conviction would be disheartening. 
But that by no means involves the conclusion 
that a man's personal bearing toward right and 
wrong is simply his bearing toward that which 
is esteemed pleasurable or painful. It implies 
that one outlook is more inspiring than an- 
other, and so better suited to sustain a high 



192 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

sense of duty. The fact is that in the common 
perception of men right and wrong on the one 
hand and pleasure and pain on the other, 
stand for things widely separated in meaning. 
As Professor Miinsterberg puts the case: 
"Our moral consciousness affirms immediately 
that when we are carried by moral will, we do 
not aim at goals, whose value is determined by 
personal like or dislike. When we will the 
morally good, we do indeed wish that the good 
also give us joy, but we know that it is not 
the good simply because it gives us pleasure." 13 
The third element in conscience is unmis- 
takably disclosed as having a constitutional 
basis. Why should a man ever be at variance 
with himself, or torture his own soul with accu- 
sations? Whence comes this swift sentence 
which breaks through all sophistical excuses 
and reveals a man to himself as condemned 
when he has done despite to any maxim which 
he recognizes when in a dispassionate frame of 
mind? It must in all reason be construed as 
the offspring of a nature that is intrinsically 
moral, as the reaction of the constitutional in 
man against the element of personal caprice. 
Nothing adventitious could react with such 
potency and persistence. By a merciful pro- 

13 "The Eternal Values," p. 39. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 193 

vision conscience often requites an offense 
with repeated strokes. By the sharpness of 
its rebuke it would save from a worse punish- 
ment. Very likely when we read the graphic 
sketch which the genius of Shakespeare has 
given of the way in which the inward monitor 
smote the queen who had been accessory to 
the murder of the aged Duncan, we are made 
to feel that here is a specimen of the most 
direful results of violence to its behests. But 
this is not so. The hand of Lady Macbeth 
repeatedly addressed to crime will at length 
cease to offend and torture her by its exhibit 
of the indelible blood stain. In this very thing 
lies the most somber aspect of the subject, that 
conscience stubbornly abused will not fail to 
avenge itself by the penalty of an apathy or 
paralysis which at its acme involves nothing 
less than moral suicide. 

There is no design in what has been said to 
minify the function of education in relation 
to conscience. It has an important function. 
But it is just because there are constitutional 
elements to work upon that there is a chance 
for anything like a consistent and successful 
education. Were there not constitutional apti- 
tudes in men for recognizing mathematical 
truths, education could not make mathemati- 



194 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

cians of them any more than it can teach ani- 
mals to extract the square root of numbers or 
to ascertain the circumferences of circles. Ed- 
ucation does not create. Its task is rightly to 
develop the germs of already existing capaci- 
ties and powers. Man is a proper subject for 
moral education because he has an original or 
constitutional outfit in the distinctive elements 
of conscience. 

The declaration has sometimes been made 
that conscience is the voice of God in man. To 
speak thus is not altogether unwarranted. 
While conscience cannot be so described with- 
out qualifications, on account of the element 
of contingency in a large number of moral 
judgments, it is the bearer of a divine message. 
It profoundly emphasizes the truth that man 
is the subject of a moral order, which in the 
ultimate analysis must be identified with God's 
order. In its normal development it brings 
man more and more toward the plane of 
divine thought and feeling in respect of moral 
distinctions. From the standpoint of the 
Christian view of intercommunion between the 
human and the divine it may be regarded as 
touched and vitalized in all its elements by the 
Divine Spirit. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 195 

V: Man's Gift of Freedom 

In so far as the facts of conscience exhibit 
man as a responsible moral personality they 
demonstrate his freedom. The indispensable 
condition of responsibility is freedom in the 
sense of a power of choice between alterna- 
tives. A mere instrument is not responsible. 
Now a man who from the start is shut up to a 
particular act, or series of acts, with no power 
to vary the result, is not an agent but an in- 
strument pure and simple. The true agent, if 
there be any agent in the case, is the one who 
so fashioned him and adjusted him to his en- 
vironment as to secure in all its details the 
actual outcome. It makes no difference where 
the determining factor is located, whether 
within or without the man. So long as it is 
viewed as being in origin entirely outside of his 
option it leaves him a mere instrument. The 
fact that he is a conscious instrument, or an 
instrument endowed with a faculty of reason, 
cannot be reckoned an element in his respon- 
sibility, so long as he is simply an instrument, 
any more than the quality of its metal can be 
charged against an ax. No namable quality 
or faculty in him which does not bring into 



196 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

view a power to vary the result can convey any 
rational suggestion of responsibility. 

The claim which has sometimes been made 
by the necessitarian that actions irrespective 
of their causes are good or bad in their nature, 
and so commendable or blamable, will not 
endure inspection. The claim confounds two 
very distinct things. Certain orders of con- 
duct and disposition undoubtedly are always 
obnoxious to unperverted sentiment. A fero- 
cious disposition in a man can never be pleas- 
ing to contemplate. Neither is such a disposi- 
tion pleasing to contemplate in a wild beast 
which has it by the simple gift of nature. No 
one, however, undertakes, because of it, to pass 
a sentence of moral reprobation against the 
beast. In like manner the man would not be 
liable to a sentence of moral reprobation for a 
ferocious disposition given to him outright in 
all its strength; neither would he be liable to 
such sentence for acts strictly necessitated by 
the disposition. The aesthetic sense would 
continue to pronounce both the beast and the 
man unpleasing, not to say horrible. The 
moral sense, on the other hand, could not con- 
demn either of them. The claim of the neces- 
sitarian overlooks the wide distinction between 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 197 

an aesthetic judgment and a moral judgment 
proper. 

The advocate of necessitarianism is quite 
apt to criticize the doctrine of freedom as doing 
violence to the law of causality, since it sup- 
poses that the will can act without being 
caused to act. But in bringing forward this 
objection he ignores the unique character of 
the personal cause. It is the grand distinction 
of personality, the high prerogative which lifts 
it above the plane of mere things, that it has 
the power of initiation. To deny this is to 
affront the spontaneous conviction of men, to 
turn responsibility into an insoluble enigma, 
and to leave God Himself perfectly helpless 
as respects the direction of His own action. 

The determinist is not to be blamed for set- 
ting much store by the principle of causality. 
But he carries out the principle in a too whole- 
sale fashion, not sufficiently noting the wide 
distinction between the domain of persons and 
that of things. As James Ward has re- 
marked : "That every event must have a cause 
we may allow to be axiomatic, but not that 
the same cause — the same efficient cause, that 
is — must always produce the same effect." 14 
In other words, personality is, as it has been 

14 "The World of Ends or Pluralism and Theism," Lecture XIII. 



198 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

described, a pluripotential cause, not tied to 
one sole issue, in a given connection, but able 
within limits to vary the result. A recognition 
of this point of view is implied in these sen- 
tences from the pen of Josiah Royce : "What- 
ever is unique is as such not causally ex- 
plicable. The individual as such is never the 
mere result of Law." 15 

A further objection of the determinist, 
namely, that action is characterless, unless it is 
determined by antecedent character, is urged 
with no better right. A man can choose in 
the light of motives without being strictly de- 
termined by them. According as he follows 
the superior or the inferior motive his choice 
is morally good or bad. If he makes a choice 
either better or worse in any degree than his 
antecedent character, his choice, so far from 
being characterless, is a character-making ac- 
tion. It is just in this way that men improve 
or deteriorate in character and retain responsi- 
bility for their personal development. 

The advocate of freedom has an advantage 
over the necessitarian in that his theoiy is 
agreeable to the appearances of things. Men 
appear to themselves to be free in a great 
number of actions, and their fellows seem also 

15 «The World and the Individual," I, p. 467. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 199 

repeatedly to be in the exercise of real choice. 
At the same time it is forced upon their obser- 
vation that motives exert a mighty pressure, 
and that antecedent character is very likely to 
shape the direction of the will, so that in rela- 
tion to much that occurs there is a certain ap- 
pearance of determinism. Now the cham- 
pion of freedom is in no wise precluded from 
recognizing both orders of appearances. He 
is not required to minify the pressure of 
motives or to count for naught the force of 
antecedents. All that his theory requires is 
that he should hold fast to the conclusion that 
men are not absolutely shut up to a prede- 
termined course, that they can and do betimes 
exercise a real faculty of alternativity. On the 
other hand, the determinist allows the occur- 
rence of no free acts whatsoever. His theory 
has this unhappy result, that it constrains him 
to flout one side of appearances. 

Freedom in the sense under consideration, 
or as a power of choosing between alternatives, 
is repeatedly implied in the biblical picture of 
man and his relations. But the Bible makes 
large account of freedom in a different sense. 
It uses the term to denote not merely a faculty 
of alternativity, or power of varying the result 
in a given instance, but also to describe the 



200 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

large, unhindered, untrammeled life which be- 
longs to him who is in harmony with the moral 
ideal, whose will is fused into oneness with the 
supreme standard. In technical phrase this is 
designated real freedom as distinguished from 
formal. Christ gave expression to it when He 
said: "If ye abide in my words, ye shall know 
the truth, and the truth shall make you free." 16 
It is the freedom of righteousness as opposed 
to the enslavement of sin, the freedom of the 
child whom the master of the house is glad to 
honor as a child, the freedom which the Head 
of the universe is ready and able to secure to 
the one who chooses the line of His holy will 
and purpose. 



VI: Man's Actual Condition as Compared with 
the Ideal 

While the sacred writings of Christianity 
greatly honor man in their conception of his 
origin, his destination to an immortal life, and 
his investment with moral and religious capaci- 
ties that qualify him for the citizenship of a 
divine kingdom and the fellowship of a divine 
household, they do not speak in flattering 
terms of his actual condition. They describe 

18 John viii, 31, 32. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 201 

him in fact, as weak, temptable, born with a 
tendency to go astray, and competent to reach 
a worthy destiny only through struggle and the 
merciful assistance of a divine hand. In truth, 
it is a rather somber picture which the Scrip- 
tures present of the actual moral and religious 
condition of the race. 17 

Nevertheless, it must be said, in justice to 
the facts, that the biblical picture of man's 
condition is not so somber, by a number of 
degrees, as that which has had considerable 
currency in the Christian Church since the time 
of Augustine. One of the blackest strokes in 
the Augustinian representation, namely, that 
which depicts the entire race as born under 
condemnation because of Adam's trespass, 
cannot fairly be said to have any place in the 
biblical teaching. The Old Testament never 
once insinuates the notion that Adam's sin was 
charged upon his posterity, and that accord- 
ingly every one of them is born into the world 
under the shadow of the divine displeasure. 
It speaks indeed in some connections of the 
visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the 
children, and it is possible that one or another 
of the ancient writers thought of this visitation 

" Gen. vi, 5, 11-13, viii, 21 ; 1 Kings viii, 46 ; Job iv, 17-19, 
xiv, 4, xv, 14-16, xxv, 5, 6 ; Ps. xiv, 1-3, li, 5, liii, 1-3, cxliii, 2 ; 
Prov. xx, 9 ; Eccl. vii, 20 ; Isa. lxiv, 6 ; John iii, 6 ; Rom. iii, 9-12, 
23, v, 12; Eph. ii, 3. 



202 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

as implying not only the transmission of af- 
flictive consequences but also of condemnation. 
If that, however, was their understanding in 
any case, it represented an inferior point of 
view which the Old Testament outgrew and 
distinctly repudiated. 18 

In the New Testament there is no language 
which a sound exegesis requires us to construe 
as implying transmitted condemnation or he- 
reditary guilt. Two or three references of 
Paul, it is true, have a verbal affiliation with 
the Augustinian doctrine. Still a complete 
survey of his statements provides a good war- 
rant for a different understanding of his doc- 
trinal position. It is found that the connec- 
tion which he makes between the sin of Adam 
and his posterity means only that the sin of 
the first parent was a bad beginning which 
tended to make all men sinners, just as the 
righteous obedience of Christ was a good 
beginning which tended to make all men right- 
eous. In his fervid rhetorical representation 
tendency stands for the condition toward 
which it reaches. It is not necessary to sup- 
pose that he thought of men as actually sin- 
ning in Adam's trespass any more than he 
thought of men as actually dying to sin in 

18 Deut. xxiv, 16 ; 2 Kings xiv, 6 ; Prov. ix, 12 ; Jer. xxxi, 29, 
30; Ezek. xviii, xxxiii, 10-20. 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 20$ 

the crucifixion of Christ. That he was free to 
use the latter form of expression is made mani- 
fest by his recorded words. 19 

It hardly needs to be added that if the scrip- 
tural teaching does not enforce the idea of 
birth into a state of guilt, there is absolutely 
nothing that does. No shadow of rational jus- 
tification can be offered for the notion of ante- 
natal sin or hereditary guilt. Heredity may 
indeed be a factor of very appreciable moment. 
It can be supposed to work in many cases for 
a disturbance of emotional balance, and so for 
the impairment of conduct. But the transmis- 
sion in this way of adverse tendency is quite 
another thing than the transmission of guilt. 
Of the latter no rational account can be given. 
To hold men responsible for the fault of 
Adam, because they were potentially in him at 
the time of his trespass, would be about as 
reasonable as to hold them responsible for 
some apparent flaw in the world because for- 
sooth they were potentially in the Creator at 
the time of creation. No more reasonable 
would it be to maintain that Adam stood as the 
representative of the race, and that God was 
pleased to charge the sin of the representative 
upon the party represented. Sin is a thor- 

» Rom. vi, 6 ; 2 Cor. v, 14 ; Gal. ii, 20. 



204 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

oughly personal act, and in relation to it no 
man can be represented by another, so as to 
incur the guilt of another's act. As well sup- 
pose men to exchange souls as to take the guilt 
of one another. 

We conclude, then, that the true Christian 
teaching affirms simply that men are born with 
tendencies to sin. Universally they exhibit a 
great facility in going astray, and also very 
generally more or less of a real bent to a faulty 
course. There is no slightest ground for 
charging them with guilt until they appro- 
priate and follow out the adverse tenden- 
cies into personal transgression. As to the 
strength of the misleading impulses, it would 
be nothing less than a veritable hyperbole of 
pessimistic speech to describe them under the 
name of "total depravity." So extravagant a 
slander against the race ought never to have 
been perpetrated. On the other hand, it is a 
superficial optimism which makes small ac- 
count of the evil strain. Elements of good 
enter into the natural condition of every man; 
but abundant facts demonstrate that in men's 
lives there is a current which bears strongly in 
the wrong direction, an unhappy facility of go- 
ing wrong. The one who lives apart amid ami- 
able surroundings, confined to the society of 



NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN 205 

agreeable friends, may possibly be inclined to 
think that it is a mean and unwarranted insinu- 
ation against human nature to suppose men 
generally to have any bent to folly and sin. 
But let him resolutely grapple with men, and 
attempt to move individuals or communities 
from unmistakable evil and corruption up to 
the plane of consistent righteousness, and he 
will quickly come to realize that it is no mild 
current of wayward tendency that he con- 
fronts. Who that touches real life is ignorant 
of the appalling force with which a single moral 
distemper in a community resists restraint or 
remedy? To break, for example, the league of 
avarice and appetite which sustains the liquor 
traffic is, under the usual conditions, like the 
task of removing mountains. It is only by 
great watchfulness, stress, and effort that the 
evils of society are kept from passing on to dire 
extremes. The pains, the wrestlings, and 
often even the shed blood, of the elect children 
of God are in demand for crowding back the 
continually reappearing forces of animalism, 
unfeeling greed, and headlong selfishness. 
The idea of man is noble, and it is a lofty des- 
tiny to which he is called ; but his condition is 
not such that he is likely to reach that destiny 
by any easy holiday march. 



CHAPTER VI: THE CHRISTIAN 

TEACHING RESPECTING THE 

PERFECTING OF THE 

INDIVIDUAL 

/: Constituents of the Ideal Set before the 
Individual 

The theme with which we are dealing in this 
connection might be described in other terms 
as the doctrine of salvation. To gain the 
Christian ideal is to gain salvation in the full- 
est sense of the word. 

A thoroughly vital conscience may be speci- 
fied as the first constituent or factor of the 
Christian ideal. There is no good ground to 
build upon in the man who lacks a keen sense 
of personal obligation, or who is too obtuse in 
moral sensibilities to feel the smart and degra- 
dation of known transgressions. Reverence 
for moral order, conviction of its worth, and 
inward election of its standard lie at the basis 
of all true character. There is doubtless such 
a thing as a morbid conscientiousness. But 
this does not mean that a man is liable to have 

206 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 207 

a larger and deeper moral sensibility than he 
ought to have. There is absolutely no danger 
on that side. The morbid element comes not 
from an excess of sensibility, but from lack of 
a healthy common sense, to give direction to 
scruples or to connect them with an appro- 
priate subject-matter. It were good for a man 
to have a conscience as sensitive to the blot of 
personal misconduct as is the eye to the pres- 
ence of a foreign substance. To ignore this 
demand for a lively, energetic conscience, or 
to imagine that there is any path around it to 
the Christian ideal, is to indulge in a complete 
illusion. One might fitly imitate the language 
of the apostle Paul and say : Though I speak 
with the tongues of men and of angels, and 
though I have visions and ecstasies and the 
most transcendent flights of soul, and have not 
a stanch and active conscience which holds me 
tenaciously to my duty, I am an empty pre- 
tender. 

A second constituent of the Christian ideal 
is freedom through inner conformity to the 
standard of duty. This means not merely that 
there is a decided election, through force of 
will, of the standard acknowledged to be obli- 
gatory, but also that this choice is so far sup- 
ported by the sympathies and affections that 



208 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

allegiance can be given thereto cheerfully and 
gladly. To a large degree it is half-hearted- 
ness that makes shackles and keeps up the 
sense of painful striving. No doubt, under 
ordinary earthly conditions almost any one is 
likely to find steep places in the path of duty, 
obligations which, if really met, must be met 
in the face of a strong inner reluctance. To 
triumph over this reluctance is, beyond ques- 
tion, a sign of strength and nobility. Still, to 
keep on doing duty with harassment of 
spirit is not the ideal way. The old Hebrew 
prophets saw as much when they pictured a 
golden era to come, in which the house of 
Israel should have the law written upon their 
hearts. The like point of view is emphatically 
set forth in the New Testament. The goal 
toward which the teaching of Christ and the 
apostles directs is freedom under law, liberty 
in the face of obligation, because law and obli- 
gation are taken into the region of the heart 
life and transfigured by the power of holy af- 
fections. That teaching sets duty exceedingly 
high, but it represents its hard features as ulti- 
mately melting away in the fervid rays of an 
impassioned love. 

Once more the ideal to which Christianity 
calls the individual includes, as has been in- 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 209 

timated on preceding pages, the filial relation 
and disposition toward God. That this is the 
crowning attainment will not be disputed by 
one who properly understands its meaning. 
Who indeed can conceive of anything more 
beautiful, noble, and kingly for a man than to 
possess the character and to stand in the re- 
lation of a child of God, being filled with trust 
and love toward Him, reposing upon His 
fatherly goodness, and entering with free- 
hearted zeal into the fulfillment of His holy 
purposes? The life most mean and barren 
outwardly is made inexpressibly rich by such 
an attainment. And it is made all the richer 
because the high and precious relation with 
God works effectively toward a thoroughly 
brotherly relation to men as actual or possible 
children of God. Those whom God owns the 
child of God cannot consistently disown. As 
certainly, therefore, as the true child of God 
sends out the heart to Him in trust and love, 
he will have a sympathetic interest in his fel- 
lows. He can make no disjunction between 
the law of supreme love to God and the law 
of equal love to the neighbor. 

So comprehensive in its import is the filial 
character just described that this phase of the 
Christian ideal may be regarded as implicitly 



210 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

containing all the rest. Where that character 
has been established in rounded perfection 
every fruit of the spirit must abound — love, 
joy, peace, long suffering, meekness, and all 
the rest of the glorious train. We therefore 
choose a formula as fitting as it is brief when 
we say: The ideal of Christian attainment is 
the realization of the standing, character and 
conduct of a true child of God. 

77: Universality of the Call to the Christian Ideal 

The natural presupposition is that the 
Christian ideal of character and relationship 
is set before all men as an object of possible 
attainment, and that it is the unfeigned desire 
of God and of all good beings that every son 
and daughter of the race should ultimately 
possess the incomparable treasure. It is abso- 
lutely impossible to think of any attribute in 
God which should make it an object of desire 
on His part that any man should fail of an 
ideal character. The hazard of failure may 
be unavoidably involved in a possible abuse 
of freedom; but that God on His side should 
actually prefer to have any one make a wrong 
and ruinous use of his freedom is inconceiv- 
able. As the absolute love He must desire 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 211 

the well-being, the essential good or blessed- 
ness, of those whom He has made in His own 
image. Since He is the absolutely righteous, 
it must be a matter of infinite preference on 
His part that all free beings should become 
thoroughly established in righteousness. Au- 
gustine indeed argued that God had a motive 
for willing that men should be divided into the 
two classes of the elect and the reprobate, in or- 
der that He might display His compassionate 
love to the one party, and show forth His se- 
verity and justice upon the other. But this 
representation simply eclipses the ethical na- 
ture of God. Love and justice which are sub- 
ject, as respects their direction, to fiat are not 
love and justice, but mere arbitrariness or 
caprice. A man who out of a number of 
equally deserving children should elect one- 
half to be subjects of unsparing severity 
would not be taken as a pattern either of pa- 
rental love or justice; he would rather be 
counted an example of appalling eccentricity. 
In the natural sphere there is undoubtedly 
a kind of election to life or success on the one 
hand, and to failure on the other. Out of a 
totality of germs in almost any area which may 
be observed only a part ever attain unto ma- 
ture growth and fruitage. Plainly, however, 



212 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

it will not do to cite this order of facts as in- 
dicative of God's procedure with beings whom 
He has made capable of holding to Himself 
the relation of children. A far more suitable 
analogy is found in the sphere of man's family- 
life. As the earthly father is required by his 
relation not to treat any of his children with 
indifference, it is to be presumed that the 
Father in heaven does not look upon any hu- 
man beings who are born into His world as 
objects simply of indifference or despite. 

Coinciding with the rational presupposition 
is the whole sum of evidence in the Bible for 
the universal fatherhood of God. That evi- 
dence has already been reviewed and found to 
be large and unequivocal. It was noticed that 
the same Christ who claimed identity of dis- 
position with the Father showed an earnest de- 
sire to win every man, and distinctly taught 
that the one remotest from God in character 
and life, who might still be gained, was to Him 
an object of genuine solicitude. Indeed, it is 
not too much to say that the very tone and 
pith of the gospel carry the conclusion that the 
Christian ideal was meant for every man, and 
that all heaven with perfectly sincere and un- 
divided voice calls thereto. 

The passages in the New Testament which 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 213 

can be cited against the common Christian 
vocation and opportunities of men can be ex- 
plained as strong expressions of God's sover- 
eignty, of man's fundamental dependence up- 
on Him, and of the impossibility of binding 
His will by any self -chosen scheme on the part 
of men. They picture so graphically God's 
part in the issues of men's lives that for the 
time being the modifying agency of the human 
factor is left unnoticed. But it is not meant 
to be denied. The total representation of any 
sacred writer, who has expressed himself with 
moderate fullness, indicates this very clearly. 
Take, for example, the case of Paul in that 
most stalwart passage of his, the ninth chapter 
of Romans. He speaks here as though men 
were to God no more than the clay to the pot- 
ter, as though it lay entirely within His dis- 
cretion whether they should be fashioned unto 
honor or dishonor. But notice, in the first 
place, the character and claims of the men 
whom Paul had in mind. They were Jews 
who assumed in virtue of ancestral privileges 
to have a special lien on God's favor, men who 
scorned the idea that the Gentiles should be 
placed on an equality with themselves. The 
apostle thought it necessary to cast down into 
the dust this high pretension. He therefore 



214 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

paints in the strongest colors God's sover- 
eignty and the utter futility and foolishness of 
attempting to bind Him by such grounds of 
distinction and precedence as men may choose 
to recognize. Notice, in the second place, that 
Paul before the end of his argument, as ap- 
pears in the tenth and eleventh chapters of 
the epistle, corrects any impression of divine 
arbitrariness which might be drawn from his 
oratorical outburst. He speaks of that por- 
tion of Israel which he described as repro- 
bate, broken off from the true stock, as capa- 
ble of being grafted in again. Indeed he 
hopes that the temporary hardening and re- 
jection of Israel will result in an extraordinary 
extension of salvation among both Jews and 
Gentiles. "A hardening in part hath befallen 
Israel," he says, "until the fulness of the Gen- 
tiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be 
saved." 1 Thus the ultimate picture sketched 
by the apostle is not that of a divine sover- 
eignty which arbitrarily casts men away, but 
rather of a divine sovereignty which rules and 
overrules events, to the end that the greatest 
possible number may be made partakers of 
everlasting life. In an earlier passage of the 
same epistle, 2 wherein he speaks of the obedi- 

1 Rom. xi, 25, 26. 

2 Rom. v, 18. 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 215 

ence of Christ as offsetting the disobedience of 
Adam and bringing the gifts of grace to all 
men, he attributes the same universality to 
God's benevolent purpose. The tenor of his 
conviction is also indicated in those passages 
of his epistles which refer to Christ as dying 
for all, and describe the gospel ministry as de- 
signed by God to reconcile the world unto 
Himself. 3 

In relation to John's writings it will be 
found in like manner that any appearance of 
limitation put upon God's benevolent designs 
for men is corrected or offset in the total rep- 
resentation. The prize of salvation is declared 
to be for every man who will repent and be- 
lieve on the Saviour. "Whosoever believeth 
on Him shall not perish, but have eternal 
life. For God sent not the Son into the world 
to judge the world; but that the world should 
be saved through Him." 4 "And the spirit 
and the bride say, Come. And let him that 
heareth say, Come. And he that is athirst, let 
him come ; he that will let him take of the water 
of life freely." 5 

3 2 Cor. v, 15, 19 ; 1 Tim. ii, 4-6 ; Titus, ii, 11. 

*John iii, 16, 17. 

6 Rev. xxii, 17. Criticism is not unanimous for the judgment 
that the book containing this passage came from the author of 
the fourth Gospel ; but the cited passage in no wise misrepresents 
his standpoint. 



216 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

III : Conditions which the Individual Must Fulfill 
in Starting toward the Ideal 

The prominence of the filial relation and 
character in the Christian ideal indicates clearly 
what must be the primary condition of its 
realization. For, in the nature of the case 
nothing can be more indispensable to the re- 
lation and character of a true child than faith. 
There is then no legitimate cause for surprise 
in the fact that the Bible makes so much of 
faith. It would need to make less of the voca- 
tion of men as children of God, if it were to 
make less of faith. Take a living faith out 
of the filial character, and the character left 
will be anything but filial. 

The teachings of Christ do not lack sen- 
tences which directly emphasize the virtue and 
indispensableness of faith. It is pictured as 
the medium of salvation, as the power which 
is able to remove mountains, and to which 
nothing is impossible. 6 Still we gain but an 
imperfect view of the stress upon faith in 
Christ's teaching if we confine ourselves to in- 
stances of explicit mention. The indirect in- 
culcation of faith is quite as cogent as the 
direct. We may observe it in the whole strain 

6 John vi, 29; Luke vii, 50; Matt, xvii, 20. 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 217 

of reference to God as the Father in heaven 
whose minute and tender oversight banishes 
occasion for anxious care ; in the parable which 
puts the humility and deep sense of depend- 
ence upon the divine clemency exhibited by 
the publican in contrast with the self-satisfac- 
tion of the Pharisee; in the declaration that 
entrance into the kingdom of heaven requires 
the childlike disposition ; and in the representa- 
tion that the genuine and fruit-bearing disciple 
is the one who abides in the Christ as the 
branch in the vine. 

An equal prominence is given to faith in the 
apostolic teaching which finds expression in 
the Epistles of the New Testament. Salva- 
tion by faith, as opposed to salvation by legal 
performances, may be described as the leading 
theme of Paul's discourse. The following are 
are but specimen sentences : "We reckon that 
a man is justified by faith apart from the 
works of the law." 7 "The law hath been our 
tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might 
be justified by faith. But now that faith is 
come, we are no longer under a tutor. For 
ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ 
Jesus." 8 Taken out of the field of the existing 



T Rom. iii, 28. 
•Gal. iii, 24-26. 



218 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

controversy, and translated into more general 
terms, Paul's contention amounts to the truth, 
that the inner disposition is the fundamental 
condition of salvation, for which no amount of 
external performances is any substitute, and 
that the proper inner disposition is that spirit 
of sonship which naturally comes from a true 
acceptance of the message of God in Christ. 

By what has already been said it has been 
intimated that faith, in the proper religious 
sense, means much more than mere belief or 
intellectual assent. It denotes a positive 
practical relation to an object with which more 
or less of an ideal character is associated, an 
attitude of genuine self -committal to that ob- 
ject. Now the highest object, the supreme 
ideal, as known to the Bible and to good phi- 
losophy, is a Divine Person. From their point 
of view, then, faith must mean an act or an 
attitude of self -committal to a Divine Person. 
In its specifically Christian signification it 
may be defined as the act or attitude of self- 
committal to God as revealed in Christ. We 
say "act" or "attitude," since faith may be 
viewed either as an act or as a standing habit 
or disposition which the act initiates. The 
principal stress, of course, falls upon the latter. 
The supreme and immediate object of faith is 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 219 

a person and not a message. Some sort of a 
message may be necessary for outlining to the 
mind the person who is the object of faith. 
Still the real object of heart-reliance is the per- 
son, and the message first becomes a matter for 
affectionate appropriation when it is viewed, 
not as the message of a distant and unrelated 
person, but of one with whom in our inmost 
being we are linked. Any intelligent person 
may render a sort of intellectual appreciation 
to the divine message in the Scriptures and 
perhaps also give to it some degree of heart 
response. But still it is true that only the one 
who comes to the Father in heaven, and makes 
the filial self -committal to Him, gains the 
proper standpoint for an adequate apprecia- 
tion of the message. The bond with the Per- 
son involves at once a bond of sympathetic 
connection with all that which is regarded as 
reflecting the mind of the Person. 

As a principle of action, or practical reali- 
zation, faith stands in a harmonious relation 
to reason. The one attains what the other 
approves. Reason certainly dictates a trust- 
ful self -committal to the Being in whom are 
limitless power and benevolence ; faith consum- 
mates this self -committal. Reason also dic- 
tates the acceptance of whatever fairly ap- 



220 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

proves itself as reflecting the mind of this Di- 
vine Person ; faith cordially accepts that much, 
and counts itself as holden to nothing more. 
It never imposes a demand for blind or irra- 
tional assent. 

In the point of view of Christianity the di- 
recting of faith toward Christ is important. 
He stands as the authentic messenger of God, 
central to the manifestation of God which has 
intrinsically the highest spiritual potency. For 
faith to go out to Him means, therefore, for 
it to take the path of the highest saving effi- 
cacy. It is beyond question the normal course 
for it to take. But from this fact we are not 
allowed to infer that specific faith in Christ as 
set forth in the New Testament is an impera- 
tive condition of salvation. Christ came to 
facilitate salvation, not to raise against it a 
technical barrier. The man to whom he has 
not been disclosed is not shut out from Him by 
lack of formal Christian faith, provided there 
is a distinct leaning in his spirit toward the 
ideal for which Christ stands. Such a man 
may be expected when Christ is truly revealed 
to him as the Head of redeemed humanity 
gladly to recognize Him as his Lord. 

The description which has been given of 
faith prepares for a proper rating of what may 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 221 

be called the secondary conditions of entrance 
into the way of salvation, the way that leads to 
the Christian ideal. These are repentance and 
evangelical obedience, the latter of which de- 
notes obedience to the ethical and religious 
code of the gospel. Repentance may be de- 
fined as sorrow for misdoing together with a 
positive purpose of amendment. In this sig- 
nificance it is plainly secondary to faith. No 
one turns away from a soiled and imperfect 
past except in favor of something better, ex- 
cept under the solicitation of a higher ideal. 
Some measure of inward assent to that ideal is 
logically antecedent to the act of turning away 
from the opposite. Faith, therefore, as self- 
committal, to a superior object of trust and 
obligation lays the basis for repentance. The 
former term expresses the positive element in 
a transaction or state of which the latter names 
the negative element. In the one you have 
the idea of association with a Divine Person, in 
the other the idea of that recession from evil 
which is the necessary counterpart of a holy 
association. 

It is easy to see also that in relation to 
evangelical obedience faith is the primary or 
root principle. As trustful self -committal to 
a Divine Person it is itself a kind of compre- 



222 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

hensive inward obedience. It is the vital dis- 
position of obedience lying back of specific 
acts of obedience. Without the vital disposi- 
tion there would be no true obedience, but 
only perfunctory or mercenary performances. 
Nevertheless, it will not do to attach a slight 
significance to specific acts of obedience. If, 
on the one hand, it is true that the inner dispo- 
sition denoted by the word "faith" must be at 
the heart of specific acts in order that they may 
have genuine religious worth, it is true, on the 
other hand, that the inner disposition, for its 
own maintenance and development, needs to 
go out in specific acts. Just as it tends to las- 
situde in a man's will power, if he does not go 
out upon the field of this world's affairs and 
grapple with actual conditions, so faith di- 
vorced from appropriate lines of activity lacks 
a requisite of healthy growth and indeed of 
subsistence. Faith is all-sufficient in the sense 
that it puts one at once in a normal or filial re- 
lation with God. But it would deny itself if 
it did not inspire to good works with the com- 
ing of opportunities for their performance. 

IV: The Divine Response and Cooperation 

Divine agency goes before, accompanies, 
and follows the acts of the individual whereby 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 223 

he turns toward the Christian ideal, or enters 
the way of salvation. It goes before those 
acts as graciously prompting to them. It ac- 
companies them as a means of continuous in- 
centive and support. It follows them in the 
bestowment of the great benefits appropriate 
to the new life chosen by the believing, peni- 
tent, and obedient person. We express the 
essential character of these benefits when we 
affirm that for such a one God improves His 
opportunity to give practical realization to the 
filial relation. If we wish to use language 
more distinctly theological, we designate the 
benefits by the terms justification, regenera- 
tion, and assurance. 

Viewed as to its composition the word "jus- 
tification" may be understood to mean making 
just or righteous. But in common usage it is 
employed in the sense of "pronouncing just." 
The scriptures undoubtedly employ it in not 
a few instances in the latter sense, and it sub- 
serves the end of distinguishing it from regen- 
eration to confine it to that meaning. Taken 
thus it denotes the favorable judgment, the 
attitude of gracious welcome which God ex- 
tends to the one who through faith comes to 
possess the germ of the filial character. Such 
a person may be far from being actually per- 



224 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

feet. But God sees that in earnest intention 
he has parted from the evil of the past, that 
his faith is a potentiality of righteousness 
which connects him with the ideal, and that he 
only needs to go on in the path which he has 
entered in order to attain ultimately to the 
unblemished standard. He therefore takes 
pleasure in him, counts the evil of his past a 
bygone, and sincerely receives and approves 
him. This is justification, the pardon or for- 
giveness bestowed by God. It is gracious and 
benevolent, but in no wise artificial. It de- 
clares no man other than he is. It is simply 
the favorable response of the heavenly Father 
to the one who through faith is preparing to 
act the part of a dutiful child of His. 

Justification, as the forgiving and approv- 
ing sentence of God, may be said to be done 
for a man. Regeneration denotes the effect, 
which, at the time of justification, is wrought 
in a man. In considering the nature of this 
spiritual birth or renewal we need to combine 
two different views. The one is a stanch con- 
ception of the divine immanence. All earnest 
theism teaches this. It requires us to think 
of our lives as insphered in God, to recognize 
a fundamental dependence upon Him both in 
respect of the physical and the spiritual. The 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 225 

other conception is that God respects the con- 
stitution of human souls, and will never deal 
with them as mere things. Putting these two 
conceptions together we reach the idea of a 
spiritual energy, subtle and powerful, but 
gentle in its method, assisting a man to go in 
the direction of his own better choice, intensi- 
fying his resolution against evil, strengthening 
his love for the good, clarifying his vision of 
the things of supreme worth, consoling and 
stimulating him with a sense of high and holy 
relationships. This is the power of regenera- 
tion. It does not force or drive. It does not 
put any new faculty into a man. As a gentle 
yet mighty agent, it comes to the assistance of 
a man in his turning toward the ideal, and 
helps him to attain the habitual purpose and 
feeling which befit him as the citizen of a spir- 
itual kingdom and the child of a spiritual 
household. Regeneration may be supernatural, 
but we have no more reason to consider it un- 
natural than we have so to consider the divine 
immanence. If God is really near to human 
spirits and able to touch them, why should not 
the virtue of His presence be specially opera- 
tive in one who opens to Him the avenues of 
his spiritual nature by an act of trustful self- 
surrender? It is impossible to think otherwise 



226 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

without abandoning the central Christian con- 
ception of God and of His relation to men. 

There is a liability of setting the truth of 
regeneration in a false light by making the 
term to stand for a marked crisis in conscious- 
ness. The crisis does occur not infrequently. 
But it is the accident, not the essential. A 
man who blocks up the avenues of divine ap- 
proach to himself, and stubbornly resists the 
work of grace, not unnaturally experiences, 
when he does give way, a very decided emo- 
tional crisis, especially if he be a man of highly 
emotional bent. But his experience is no 
standard for judging that of others. Daylight 
is no less daylight because it may arrive by 
imperceptible advances. So the state of filial 
trust in God and of decided cheerful purpose 
to please Him is the regenerate state, under 
whatever conditions it may have been reached. 

A very close association with regeneration 
may properly be given to assurance, by which 
is meant a more or less luminous conviction of 
an individual that he stands before God as an 
accepted child. Beyond all fair question such 
a conviction is an appropriate factor in a 
Christian consciousness. If it be actually the 
supreme vocation of a man to be a child of 
God, then in all consistency he ought to come 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL JOT 

to feel as a child of God. It would be decid- 
edly out of harmony with his filial relation 
to doubt the friendly attitude of God toward 
himself. By no possibility could a doubt of 
that sort be agreeable to God or conformable 
to His plan. If God thinks it worth while 
to work toward the filial character in a given 
individual, then He must think it worth while 
to work toward the filial consciousness in him, 
or the inward conviction that he has the stand- 
ing of an accepted child. 

This rational induction has the clear sup- 
port of the Scriptures. "Because ye are sons," 
says Paul, "God sent forth the spirit of His 
Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." 9 
"On whom," says Peter, "though now ye see 
Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with 
joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving 
the end of your faith, even the salvation of 
your souls." 10 Equally suggestive of a posi- 
tive realization of divine relationships are the 
words of Christ spoken in connection with His 
promise of the Comforter: "He that loveth 
me shall be loved of My Father, and I will 
love him, and will manifest Myself unto him. 
... If a man love Me he will keep My 
words ; and My Father will love him, and we 

8 Gal. iv, 6. 

10 1 Pet. i, 8, 9. 



228 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

will come unto him, and make our abode with 
him." X1 

The method in which the Divine Spirit 
works assurance in the heart of the believer 
lies beyond the range of discovery. Possibly 
at some crisis in experience the Spirit works 
directly to awaken the specific conviction of 
acceptance with God. But ordinarily a work- 
ing in this form would not seem to be neces- 
sary. Living filial affections by their own vir- 
tue naturally evoke a spontaneous inference 
as to the relation of acceptance with God. 
The filial heart, in the outflow of its trust and 
love, can hardly be restrained from calling 
to God as Father. The great demand, there- 
fore, for the enjoyment of assurance, as a 
standing fact in the experience of the believer, 
appears to be simply the possession, through 
the efficacious working of the Holy Spirit, of 
living filial affections. One who has these af- 
fections need not wait for any mystic voice to 
assure him of his standing. In the earnest 
and trustful cry of his heart to the heavenly 
Father he already has the essential part of 
assurance. 

"John xiv, 21, 23. 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 229 

V: Aids to Com&vtmed, Progress toward the 
Christian Ideal 

In considering things necessary or help- 
ful to continued progress toward the Christian 
ideal — or to use a more technical term, things 
contributory to progressive sanctification — we 
need to recur to the conditions of beginning a 
Christian life. As has been seen, these are 
faith in the sense of a trustful self -committal 
to a Divine Person, repentance regarded as a 
turning away in the standing purpose from 
all recognized evil and imperfection in one's 
life, and evangelical obedience, or a readiness, 
as occasion arises, to carry out the principle 
of faith into a detailed fulfillment of the ethical 
and religious code of the gospel. These are 
not merely the conditions of starting toward 
the ideal; they are the foremost conditions of 
continuous progress up to the ideal itself, up 
to the goal of complete sanctification. One ad- 
vances at the best rate by just cultivating the 
spirit in which he made a start. He does not 
need to trouble himself with any fine and 
subtle scheme for getting hold of the forces 
of the spiritual world. He has simply to go 
forward in the spirit of faith, penitence and 
obedience. These are the constant requisites. 



230 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

It is worth while, however, to take note of two 
or three things either implicitly contained in 
them or accessory to their office. 

We remark then, in the first place, that it is 
helpful to progress to keep up a vital sense 
of spiritual dependence. Personal effort is 
likely to be a hard striving when divorced from 
a sense of intimate connection with a gracious 
and all-powerful personality. It tends greatly 
to illuminate moral struggle if one can share 
in the sentiment which brought to the lips of 
the apostle the question, "If God be for us, 
who can be against us?" Struggle may be 
heroic in one who is self -centered ; that it may 
be in the best sense cheerful and victorious, 
there needs to be the consciousness of union 
with a Divine Helper. 

A double aspect of truth needs here to be 
carefully respected. Strenuousness is most 
certainly to be cultivated. Religion must go 
out into energetic practical activity. As 
George Tyrrell tells us: "No will can be united 
to God's and built into the communion of 
saints that is not firmly set upon the overthrow 
of evil and the triumph of good through the 
length and the breadth of the earth." The 
strenuous will, however, needs to enter into 
copartnership with the Divine Ally in order 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 231 

to reach the proper achievement, and this co- 
partnership is conditioned on a habit of full 
trustful self -delivery to that Ally. As an old 
Egyptian proverb puts the two sides of the 
demand : "The archer hitteth the target partly 
by pulling, partly by letting go ; the boatman 
reacheth the landing partly by pulling, partly 
by letting go." 

In the second place, it ministers to progress 
to take the mediation of Christ at its true prac- 
tical value. An ambitious spirit may indeed 
think of making a direct flight to God, giving 
little or no heed to the instrumentality which 
is commended in the gospel. But the result 
is not likely, in the long run, to be of the best 
order. There is a danger in this procedure 
that the thought of God will lose much of its 
vitality through vagueness and generality. 
One will proceed more securely by looking 
very frequently to Christ, since He is the per- 
fect guide to a sense of fellowship with the 
Father. The spirit of sonship dwelt in Him 
in ideal measure. To be in His company, 
therefore, is to be in contact with the spirit of 
sonship, to have vividly before the mind an 
authentic picture of the heavenly Father, and 
by natural consequence to gain the most home- 
like feeling in His presence that could by any 



232 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

means be realized. There is also — to state a 
truth that will bear repetition — in companion- 
ship with Christ the great advantage that it 
never isolates one from his fellows. He never 
conducts to an absorption in God to the injury 
of a sympathetic connection with men. If He 
called Himself the Son of God, He called 
Himself also the Son of Man, and He showed 
by the most indubitable proofs that He was 
with men and for men. Thus while He leads 
near to God, He at the same time leads near 
to men, and enforces the brotherly relation- 
ship. Indeed it is one of the chief glories of 
Christianity that in the person of its Founder 
there is provided at once a bond of intimate 
fellowship with God and of sympathetic re- 
lation with men. 

Again it ministers to progress toward the 
Christian ideal rightly to combine a habit of 
contemplation with practical activity. For 
both the one and the other the means at hand 
are not scanty. The themes of sacred thought 
supply abundant materials for a heavenly 
vision. It is only necessary that thought and 
imagination should take hold of them in order 
to make them a source of continual edification 
and inspiration. But contemplation divorced 
from practical activity makes the mere 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 233 

dreamer. Its proper function is to give solace 
and incentive to the worker, to inspirit him by 
placing a glorious sky over his head or by sur- 
rounding him with a beautiful scene. Says the 
eloquent author of the epistle to the Hebrews : 
"Seeing we are compassed about with so great 
a cloud of witnesses let us run with patience 
the race set before us." Contemplation util- 
ized to enforce patient endeavor is the thought 
of the exhortation. 

Again a habit of utilizing very brief casual 
opportunities in one or another form of reli- 
gious exercise can be made very serviceable 
in vitalizing the religious disposition. It com- 
mends itself as a perfectly unburdensome sup- 
plement to the stated seasons of worship and 
meditation. Much refreshment and incentive, 
for example, may be derived from the employ- 
ment of chance moments through the day in 
intercessory prayer, petitions for specific indi- 
viduals in whose welfare we are or ought to be 
interested. A habit of this kind cannot fail to 
work for heart enlargement. Objectively, too, 
it may be regarded, with perfect sobriety, as 
entitled to effect genuine results. By praying 
for others we put ourselves in a favorable posi- 
tion to receive suggestions of such ministries 
to them as may be best adapted to their needs. 



234 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Moreover it is safe to hold the general principle 
that whatever improves ourselves touches the 
world for good at some point. 

Once more, in the employment of means of 
religious improvement, we pay due regard to 
a psychological law, when we give as little at- 
tention as possible to the aim at self -improve- 
ment, and as much as possible to the intrinsic 
excellence of the realities of religious contem- 
plation, and to the worth of the definite objec- 
tive ends which may be reached. Of course it 
is not possible, neither is it desirable, to ignore 
the former entirely. Some attention to our 
estate is necessary to direct the effort at its im- 
provement. It is to be remembered, however, 
that religion is not best acquired by attempting 
to practice religion upon ourselves. To think 
about the heavenly Father, or about Christ, 
just to do ourselves good, is not the way to get 
the most good from such thinking. To do 
works of kindness for the sake of their reflex 
influence upon ourselves is not the most effec- 
tive way to make dominant the kindly impulse 
in us. The vision of divine beauty, the excel- 
lence of fellowship and cooperatoin with God, 
should so commend themselves to our minds 
and hearts, that spontaneously we turn to them 
and seek them for their own sake. In like 



PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 235 

manner the great needs of our fellows and the 
worthful fruits to them and to the world which 
are certain to come from our hearty response 
to the demands of their lives, should be the 
subjects of absorbing interest. The child does 
not do his best to gain a filial attitude toward 
the mother by simply writing it down as a duty 
to be attended to, a piece of self -improvement 
which is to be wrought out. Rather by think- 
ing on the charm of the mother's love and care 
and on the insolvable debt of gratitude which 
he owes, is the fountain of finer f eeling made 
to spring up within him. So in like manner 
let the Christian proceed in his striving for re- 
ligious betterment. Let him keep in the fore- 
ground the great objective values. 



CHAPTER VII: THE SOCIAL 
IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 

2": The New Testament Terms Descriptive of the 
Social Ideal — The Kingdom and the Church 

Even a casual reading of the Gospels must 
reveal the fact that a great social ideal is set 
forth in their teachings. Repeated mention is 
made of the "Kingdom of God." Many times 
the equivalent phrase, "Kingdom of heaven," 
is employed. Matthew uses the latter term 
almost uniformly. The conception contained 
under these terms 'appears in the words "Thy 
kingdom," which occur in the petition which 
the disciples were taught to address to the 
heavenly Father. Occasionally Christ de- 
scribed the kingdom from the standpoint of re- 
lation to Himself, speaking of it as "my king- 
dom." Three times only does the word 
"Church" occur in the Gospels, whereas the 
kingdom is mentioned one hundred and twelve 
times. In the Epistles, on the other hand, the 
ratio of use is decidedly in favor of the former 
term, that being used one hundred and twelve 

236 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 237 

times, while kingdom appears but twenty-nine 
times. 

In some instances, it may be granted, the 
term kingdom is used in a way which is not 
directly suggestive of a social ideal. It is 
spoken of as something which the individual is 
to receive and to have within himself. But, on 
the other hand, mention is made of entering 
into the kingdom as though it were the kingdom 
which receives the individual, and not the in- 
dividual the kingdom. The two ways of speak- 
ing, however, are not contradictory. It is pre- 
cisely by enthroning in his own spirit the prin- 
ciples of the kingdom that a man comes into 
true association with the Head of the kingdom 
and with his fellow members in the kingdom. 
In this sense the kingdom must enter into him 
in order that he may enter into the kingdom; 
that is, he must receive the principles of the 
kingdom in order to enter the circle of the 
proper associations of the kingdom. In the 
thought of Christ the circle of associations was 
undoubtedly given no small emphasis. His 
prayer for the heart union of those who should 
obey the gospel call and His stress upon the 
law of mutual love and service show that He 
had in mind a great spiritual society, which in 
the tenor of its pure and intimate relationships 



238 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

should be a fit antecedent of the society of 
heaven, a kingdom of heaven begun upon earth. 
In what has been said it has been taken as 
undoubtedly true that Christ recognized an 
inner aspect of the kingdom. In this aspect 
the term connoted in His thought a gradually 
unfolding life, advancing after the method of a 
reality essentially ethical and spiritual. Some 
of His sayings, it is to be granted, seem to 
countenance the thought of the kingdom as 
being ushered in by the apocalyptic method, 
that is, through the sudden external crisis, the 
method of irresistible power. That in the re- 
port of His words full credit, not to say ex- 
cessive credit, was given to any element of this 
kind to which He gave utterance, is quite cer- 
tain, since the minds of the disciples, on the 
score of the education which they had received 
in later Judaism, had a strong predilection for 
apocalyptic representations. Christ may have 
given some place to current formulas in this 
line from conviction, as well as by way of ac- 
commodation in addressing an audience to 
which truth was much more accessible in pic- 
torial form than in any other. What is quite 
certain .is, that He greatly emphasized the 
kingdom as a present inward reality, advanc- 
ing in the manner of an ethical or spiritual in- 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 239 

terest. Many and varied sayings evince as 
much. Thus He implies that the kingdom is 
already present when He charges against the 
Pharisees: "The publicans and harlots go into 
the kingdom of God before you. . . . Ye shut 
the kingdom of heaven against men ; for ye en- 
ter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them 
that are entering in to enter." The like impli- 
cation goes with His approving response to 
the Scribe, "Thou are not far from the king- 
dom of God." Again, the kingdom is con- 
ceived as a present and spiritual reality when 
the condition for entrance is specified as the be- 
ing converted and becoming as little children. 
Further the list of parables in which the king- 
dom is likened to the mysterious sprouting and 
growth of grain, to the development of a mus- 
tard seed into a large plant, and to the working 
of the minute substance of leaven through 
whole measures of meal, distinctly favors the 
thought of the kingdom as a present and gradu- 
ally unfolding reality. Likewise the compari- 
son of the kingdom to a treasure hid in the 
field, for which a man barters all his posses- 
sions, or to a goodly pearl which the merchant- 
man values above his whole stock besides, mani- 
festly makes the kingdom a present means of 
personal enrichment, an essentially spiritual 



240 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

treasure. A like conception is indicated by the 
collocation of petitions in the Lord's prayer, 
implying, as it does, that the coming of the 
kingdom is identical with the doing of God's 
will on earth as it is done in heaven. Finally 
the sentence of Luke xvii, 20, 21, "The king- 
dom cometh not with observation, neither shall 
men say, Lo, here! or there! for lo, the king- 
dom of God is within you," is decidedly on the 
side of the spiritual as opposed to the apoca- 
lyptic sense of the kingdom. The whole list of 
passages, 1 it strikes us, powerfully sustains 
that sense. There is no denying that Christ 
gave a broad place to the thought of the king- 
dom as a present and spiritual reality, whatever 
other conception may have taken rank as ac- 
cessory to this. 

"So comprehensive a theme naturally pro- 
vided for a variety of representations. Viewed 
as to its source and central principle, the king- 
dom is the realized moral rule of God ; viewed 
as to the relations of its subjects, it is an ideal 
society. Regarded as a sum of spiritual goods 
which accompany or result from the realized 
rule of God, the kingdom can be spoken of as 
a treasure to be received ; regarded as the do- 
main where a divine and heavenly regime ob- 

1 Matt. xxi, 31, xxiii, 13; Mark xii, 34; Matt, xviii, 1-4; Mark 
iv, 26-29 ; Matt, xlii, 31-33, 44 ; Luke xvii, 20, 21. 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 241 

tains, it can be described as a province or sphere 
which is to be entered. As already inaugu- 
rated and in process of development, the king- 
dom is here and now ; as awaiting a great con- 
summating stage it is yet to come. Obviously 
these various aspects need not be regarded as 
necessarily involving any contradiction." 2 

The fact that the apostles spoke so infre- 
quently of the kingdom, and so often of the 
Church, may be taken as a hint that they put 
into the latter term much of the meaning of 
the former. Both terms contemplate a re- 
newed humanity. The proper subjects of the 
kingdom are those who have given an interior 
welcome to the principles of the kingdom. The 
proper members of the Church are those who 
in their fundamental disposition are prepared 
for a brotherly relation with one another. The 
one term refers more directly to the side of 
divine association and the other to the side of 
human association. But since a true relation 
to the kingly Father in heaven implies a broth- 
erly relation to men, and a brotherly relation 
to men is most adequately grounded in a filial 
relation to God, we are led to much the same 
conception whether we use the term "King- 
dom" or "Church." 

2 The citation is from the author's "New Testament Theology" 
(pp. 75-79). The Macmillan Company, New York. 



242 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

No doubt the word Church is more sugges- 
tive of a definite, tangible, concrete institution 
than is the word Kingdom. The one falls into 
association with place and time more readily 
than the other. Still it is possible, by consider- 
ing the Church in its more interior and ideal 
sense, largely to overcome this difference. 
Taken in this sense the Church overpasses the 
limits of any visible organization. It is the 
brotherhood of Christ, the household of the re- 
generate, the whole company of those who con- 
fess the headship of Christ and the obligations 
of mutual love. Some of the members may be 
in one division and some in another. They 
may be distinguished by different ecclesiastical 
names. But in so far as they belong to Christ, 
and are devoted to the establishment of His 
righteous dominion over the hearts of men, 
they belong to the one great Church of Christ. 

It is in this broad and somewhat ideal sense 
that we purpose to use the term Church. We 
mean by it the ethico-religious society which 
resulted from the ministry of Christ, and which 
has the great mission of establishing the prac- 
tical dominion of Christ in the world — the mis- 
sion of forming men into a spiritual house- 
hold, wherein they shall be governed by the law 
of supreme love to God and of equal love to the 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 243 

brother. We believe that it was a Church of 
this kind which Christ intended to found and 
which the apostles labored to establish. 

Reference ought perhaps to be made in this 
connection to the "State," as another term 
connoting social relations. What is repre- 
sented by that name received recognition in the 
New Testament. Christ's injunction, "Render 
unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's," and 
Paul's declaration, "The powers that be are or- 
dained of God," imply the legitimacy of the 
State and the solemn obligation to respect its 
claims to allegiance. The subject, however, is 
not developed. No formal discussion of the 
nature of the State occurs. Neither are the 
topics which might be regarded as coming un- 
der the purview of the State given any specific 
treatment. Industrial schemes, as little as 
political, are broached or advocated. This is 
not saying that New Testament teaching has 
no bearing upon such themes. The warranted 
statement is that it is not given to the formal 
advocacy of theories in those domains. It ad- 
dresses itself to them only through its ethico- 
religious principles. In all probability this is 
the medium through which oracles designed for 
a world-wide religion could work most satis- 
factorily. 



244 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

//; The Relation of the Individual Christicm to 
the Church 

In the study of the subject of the Church 
one of the first questions to be suggested is the 
relation of the individual Christian to the fra- 
ternity which bears that name. Practically, it 
is quite obvious, there is a large measure of 
mutual dependence. The Church can have no 
existence save as there are individual Christians 
who have a mind to associate together. The 
individual Christian, on the other hand, lacks 
the best means of attaining and developing a 
Christian character save as there is a Church 
to persuade and instruct him. There is thus 
interdependence. However, a certain logical 
priority belongs to the individual Christian, 
since the Church has no absolute prerogative to 
make him a Christian, or to give to him that re- 
generate character which he must have in order 
to gain anything more than nominal member- 
ship. Even if it be supposed that the Church 
has a rite which works with such magical effi- 
ciency as to regenerate candidates who are too 
immature either to give or to withhold consent, 
the case will not be much altered. For, every 
one must concede that the Church cannot hold 
& person to the regenerate character for a 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 245 

single hour after he comes to the point of moral 
and religious intelligence, aside from his own 
free choice and action. Ethical self-surrender 
to God consummates regeneration, inducts in- 
to a right relation with God, and lays a foun- 
dation for right relation with all God's chil- 
dren, that is, with the Church in its higher char- 
acter as a spiritual household. This ethical 
deed may conceivably be consummated apart 
from all instrumentality of the Church, or as a 
purely personal transaction between the soul 
and its Maker. As thus conditioning his own 
regenerate character, the individual Christian 
occupies a position of logical priority to the 
Church. Only a company of regenerate indi- 
viduals can constitute a true Church, and it 
rests ultimately with the individuals to deter- 
mine whether they shall gain and keep the re- 
generate character. 

The Church is third in the order of thought, 
God and the individual soul taking precedence. 
Nevertheless, Christianity makes large ac- 
count of the Church. As the religion of love 
it could not do otherwise. Love has its sphere 
in fellowship. The ideal which it dictates is not 
a multitude of perfected individuals consid- 
ered merely as individuals. It is rather a mul- 
titude of perfected individuals perfectly asso- 



246 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ciated together, each enriching the rest by the 
outflow of his sympathy and good-will, and 
enriched in turn by all. As a free personality 
and a candidate for uncompelled union in heart 
and will with God, the individual may condi- 
tion his entrance into the spiritual brother- 
hood which we call the Church. But it is quite 
certain that in so far as he unites himself 
with God he cannot wish to separate himself 
from those whom he judges to be children of 
God. As we have had occasion to remark, true 
sonship toward God and a brotherly attitude 
toward men are things which Christianity does 
not separate. Genuine Christian character 
contains a vital incentive to fellowship and 
grows in the sphere of fellowship. 

777: The Appropriate Relation between Church 
and State 

The Church and State are manifestly sepa- 
rated in significance by a considerable interval. 
The former in its proper character has no defi- 
nite territorial demarcation. It knows neither 
Jew nor Greek, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond 
nor free. Wherever a man responds in heart 
and life to God as revealed in Christ he ap- 
pears in the Christian point of view as one of 
the spiritual brotherhood, by right a member 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 247 

of the Church. The State, on the other hand, 
has a certain territorial jurisdiction. The 
dream of a universal empire or of a universal 
republic may indeed be entertained, but it is 
likely to remain a mere dream. To all practi- 
cal minds the word "State" is one that involves 
distinct local associations. 

Again, the Church differs from the State in 
its wider outlook. Contemplating man as an 
immortal being it consistently puts the main 
stress upon what makes for his good perma- 
nently, or in the world to come as well as in 
this, and subordinates his material interests to 
this high end. One or another form in which 
the Church clothes itself may be transient; 
but in idea, as being a spiritual brotherhood, it 
stands for an immortal society. The State, 
on the other hand, while by no means confin- 
ing its view exclusively to the material interests 
of its subjects, does give to those interests a 
relatively large attention, and in general con- 
siders rather the demands of the temporal 
earthly community than the relations of men 
to an immortal brotherhood. 

This antithesis does not of course imply that 
the one who directly serves the State necessar- 
ily renders less service to the immortal broth- 
erhood than does the one who directly serves 



248 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

the Church. The direct service of the former 
to the temporal secular society may be indi- 
rectly a most valuable service to the spiritual 
and immortal society, just as in turn, labor 
directly put forth for the latter may indirectly 
promote the best interests of the secular soci- 
ety. The contrast drawn involves no sort of 
estimate of the relative contribution rendered 
to the spiritual society by the ecclesiastic and 
the man of secular vocation respectively. 

While differing in idea and purpose, the 
Church and the State have offices which are 
quite harmonious. Indeed the ideals which the 
Church in its true character seeks to instate, 
in so far as they are made actually potent in 
the minds of men, reenforce in them the mo- 
tives for good citizenship. The Church thus 
contributes to the health and strength of the 
State. On the other side the State, so far as 
it secures an orderly, intelligent, and nobly am- 
bitious society, prepares a favorable field for 
the cultivation of the ideals which it is the 
office of the Church to foster. 

In consideration of this capability of mu- 
tual helpfulness, the normal relation between 
Church and State is evidently one of mutual 
friendliness. An informal moral alliance, or a 
tacit engagement of each to favor the welfare 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 249 

of the other, so far as may be consistent with 
its own special vocation, ought to subsist be- 
tween them. But more than this is of doubt- 
ful utility. A union or close alliance involves 
dangers for both sides. In case the State is 
strong and aggressive it exposes the Church 
to the hazard of losing a good part of its lib- 
erty and of falling into an unworthy spirit 
of clientship. On the other hand, if the Church 
is strong and ambitious there is a liability, on 
the basis of an intimate connection, that it 
should infringe to an injurious extent upon the 
province of the State. Ecclesiastical names 
and positions do not negate human nature in 
men, or guarantee that, if they have the oppor- 
tunity, they will not add one increment of 
power to another up to the point of virtual dic- 
tatorship. Possibly special conditions of so- 
ciety might give a measure of justification to 
a close alliance of Church and State; but on 
the whole, it seems to be the lesson of history 
that such an alliance is mischievous. There is 
good reason to believe that the Church best 
serves itself and the State by not endeavoring 
to exercise, or directly to control, political 
functions, and that the State promotes its own 
interests, and those of the Church as well, by 
not essaying to manipulate religious functions. 



250 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Freedom for each in its own sphere, supple- 
mented by mutual friendliness, the Church 
fostering intelligent devotion to the State, and 
the State giving to the Church that protection 
which is due to any approved association with- 
in its bounds — this, it seems to us, expresses 
the appropriate relation between the two. 

The plea which has sometimes been made 
that the Church has a distinct primacy over 
the State, since it is the bearer of God's will, 
and the magistrate is bound not to resist that 
will, can be regarded as valid by those only 
who believe that a monopoly of the interpreta- 
tion of the divine will has been given to a com- 
pany of ecclesiastics, to the exclusion of the 
rest of the world. Men who believe that in 
practical matters a righteous and fair-minded 
magistrate may come as near to the mind of 
God as any other kind of official will not see 
any force in the plea under consideration. It 
is to be noticed also that a function of tuition 
and a prerogative of dictation are quite differ- 
ent things. The Church to the best of its dis- 
cretion may leaven society with what it regards 
as sound deductions from gospel principles, 
and thus influence the administration of the 
State, without once assuming the formal right 
to control State policies. This form of influ- 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 251 

ence is far less liable to provoke antagonisms 
than an attempt at direct interference, and in 
the long run is far better suited to forward any 
aims which the Church may legitimately pur- 
sue for the well-being of society. 

IV: The Preeminence of the Ethic o-Religious Char- 
acter of the Church Over the Ceremonial Aspect 

It is quite evident from the preceding discus- 
sion that the Church lives and moves and has 
its being in ethical and religious interests. It 
can appropriately be defined as an ethico- 
religious society, and it is abundantly worth 
while to emphasize the truth that it is that 
sort of a society, as distinguished from a cere- 
monial institute. By a ceremonial institute is 
not meant an organization which uses cere- 
monies in a symbolical or aesthetic way, much 
as metaphors and parables are used for the 
vivid presentation of truth. An essentially 
ethico-religious society can grant a very con- 
siderable license for the use of visible forms 
and transactions, so long as the function of 
these is understood to be simply that of imag- 
ing forth religious verities and commending 
them to those who would not be so fully ac- 
cessible to a more intellectual form of address. 
Ceremonialism implies more than the use of 



252 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

forms in this way. It denotes, at least in its 
more pronounced types, a stress upon outward 
rites as means for directly effectuating spir- 
itual results, and as conditions indispensable, 
or next to indispensable, to any true standing 
in the divine kingdom. It assumes that salva- 
tion is dependent upon certain physical con- 
nections and performances, and not merely 
upon the response of the will and affections of 
the individual to the ethical and religious re- 
quirements of divine service and companion- 
ship. Ceremonialism thus defined, it must 
stoutly be maintained, is no part of the true 
conception of the Church. The Church is an 
ethico-religious society, not a ceremonial in- 
stitute, not an association dependent on the- 
urgy or physical magic. 

This conclusion is supported in the first place 
by the rational thesis already advanced, that 
the individual as a sovereign moral personal- 
ity gains the regenerate character, and is kept 
in it, by the unforced exercise of his own will. 
Nothing else in the universe can override that 
or take its place. The best that the Church 
can do is to instruct and persuade the indi- 
vidual and thereby assist him to that ethical 
self-surrender which is the open door to sal- 
vation. Ceremonies can effect no saving re- 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 253 

suit apart from this self -surrender, and it is 
at least rationally impossible to figure how they 
can serve among efficient antecedents to the 
self-surrender except as one form, among 
others, of instruction and persuasion. 

In the second place a legitimate stress upon 
the ethical nature of God is in favor of the 
ethico-religious conception of the Church as 
opposed to the ceremonial. What sort of con- 
ditions would an intensely ethical being impose 
except those intrinsically ethical, conditions 
addressed to the will, reason and affections of 
the individual! God surely cannot be con- 
ceived to put mere physical processes, or ma- 
nipulations of a material medium, in the scale 
against ethical processes. The scorn which the 
old prophets heaped upon the sacrificial sys- 
tem of Israel, viewed as a substitute for the 
fulfillment of ethical requirements, may be 
regarded as most truly representing the mind 
of God. Indeed, it is nothing short of an ab- 
surdity to suppose that in His administration 
anything like the same practical importance 
can be attached to an external rite as belongs 
to such ethical exercises as repentance, faith, 
and love. 

In the third place, the tenor of the New Tes- 
tament decidedly legitimates the ethico-reli- 



254 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

gious conception as contrasted with the cere- 
monial. It can truly be said that scarcely so 
much as a page of the New Testament is occu- 
pied with ceremonial prescription. Christ in- 
dicated briefly His wish that His disciples 
should employ bread and wine in an emble- 
matic rite for the commemoration of His sac- 
rificial death. An illustrative reference to bap- 
tism seems to occur in Christ's conversation 
with Nicodemus. In the total statement of 
the Master to the Jewish ruler the emphasis 
is plainly on the agency of the Spirit in the 
new birth. But, in order to elucidate to His 
inquirer the meaning of this birth, He refers 
to water, thereby indicating that being born of 
the Spirit signifies the experience of an in- 
ward cleansing. In one of the four Gospels a 
passing reference is made to the fact of bap- 
tism being administered by Christ's disciples. 3 
The rite at that stage, however, could hardly 
have had a distinctively Christian sense. Only 
in a single recorded sentence is it made to ap- 
pear that Christ took pains to establish any 
general obligation respecting baptism. 4 This is 
the whole sum of attention which He is known 
to have given to the ceremonies of the new dis- 
pensation. The discourse in the sixth chapter 

3 John iii, 22, iv, 1, 2. 
*Matt. xxviii, 19. 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 255 

of John's Gospel cannot properly be cited in 
behalf of a contrary conclusion. The reference 
in that chapter to partaking of the flesh and 
blood of Christ is a figurative way of incul- 
cating the necessity of appropriating by faith 
His person and work in the whole extent of 
their religious significance. That no material 
transaction was contemplated by this lan- 
guage is unequivocally signified by the inter- 
pretation put upon it by Christ Himself: "It 
is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profit- 
eth nothing : the words that I have spoken unto 
you are Spirit, and are life." 

Ceremonial references are as infrequent in 
the Epistles as in the Gospels. Practical abuse 
at Corinth gave Paul the occasion for the single 
reference to the Lord's Supper which is con- 
tained in his writings. In the whole body of 
the Epistles there are scarcely more than a half 
dozen sentences which relate to the import of 
baptism. One or another of these sentences, 
it may be granted, seems to give that rite a 
certain association with regeneration. But 
only a limited significance can be assigned to 
that association, in consideration of two promi- 
nent facts. Baptism at that time was admin- 
istered at once in connection with entrance 
upon the new life of Christianity, and so natur- 



£56 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ally was given a close connection in thought 
with regeneration. It was a rite at once typi- 
cal of regeneration, and in the sight of the com- 
pany of believers practically coincident with its 
effectuation. Under such conditions it was not 
unnatural that, in energetic rhetorical dis- 
course, baptism should occasionally have been 
spoken of as a rite of spiritual cleansing, 
though in strictness it rather typified than 
effected the cleansing. This is one fact to be 
noticed. The other fact is the very important 
one, that the New Testament is vastly remote 
from representing the essentially regenerate 
state as necessarily depending upon baptism. 
In some cases it connects its initiation with the 
ministry of the word. In the vast majority 
of instances it represents its effectuation as de- 
pending upon purely ethico-religious condi- 
tions, such as repentance and faith. In its 
dominant teaching the New Testament is true 
to Christ's condemnation of the Pharisaic ex- 
aggeration of ceremonial efficacy. It does not 
set aside the ultra-Judaic model merely for the 
purpose of putting another of the same kind, 
only christened with a new name, in its place. 
It proclaims a spiritual kingdom, an ethico- 
religious society, which is entered upon ethico- 
religious conditions — repentance, faith, obedi- 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 257 

ence, love — and not on the basis of physical 
transactions. A readiness to fulfill the essen- 
tial conditions may imply a willingness to 
meet such minor conditions as the rites which 
are suited to give visible expression to faith 
and to serve as a bond of fellowship. But no 
one is looking to the right basis of Christian 
character or standing when he is looking to 
external rites as opposed to the act and the 
habit of self -surrender and filial obedience to 
God as revealed in Christ. The Church can- 
not be turned into a ceremonial institute with- 
out contradicting the decided tenor of the 
New Testament. 

In denying to ceremonies a chief importance, 
and in repudiating them as instruments of 
magical effects, we are remote from disparag- 
ing them in so far as they are adapted to stimu- 
late to motives and activities of an ethical and 
religious nature. Truth may be pictured in 
rites as well as uttered in words. Such rites as 
baptism and the Lord's Supper give visible 
expression to the marvelous grace and love of 
God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. They 
are properly regarded, therefore, as very use- 
ful and sacred. 



258 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

V: The Liberty of the Church in Respect of Polity 

If Christianity, as an ethicoreligious sys- 
tem, is forbidden to place the chief emphasis 
upon ceremonies, in like manner it is forbidden 
to treat the question of polity or government 
as of the foremost importance. No one par- 
ticular form of polity can be regarded as of the 
essence of the Church. This conclusion rests, 
in the first place, upon the rational principle 
that a mere form of association is in the nature 
of things of secondary consequence, and may 
properly vary to meet varying conditions. 
That men should be at heart children of God 
and ready for brotherly fellowship is the su- 
preme demand for the subsistence of a Church. 
It applies to any other world as well as to this. 
But who will say that a particular form of 
Church government is thus of permanent neces- 
sity? Has any one the boldness to affirm that 
a college of cardinals, or a house of bishops, 
or an assembly or conference of delegates, is 
a necessity of heavenly society? But if any 
form of Church government may conceivably 
end before the Church ends, it is evidently not 
strictly of the essence of the Church. It may 
perhaps be the preferable form at a certain 
stage, but that fact would not necessarily se- 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 259 

cure for it a superior claim in connection with 
some other stage, to say nothing about an 
exclusive right. In the sphere of civil govern- 
ment, according to a very wide consensus of 
opinion, respect must be had to the character 
of the subjects, and therefore no one form can 
be pronounced universally and unqualifiedly 
the best. The natural inference is that the 
same principle holds good of religious society. 
In short, it seems scarcely less appropriate, in 
a rational point of view, to make the title to 
true manhood depend on wearing a particular 
style of clothes, than to insist that a par- 
ticular form of polity is necessary to the exist- 
ence of the Church. 

Concurring with the force of these rational 
grounds, we have a general historical consid- 
eration which amounts to a practical demon- 
stration. For no considerable period has the 
Christian Church been under one unvarying 
polity. During long intervals different types 
have subsisted side by side over broad areas. 
Now will any one say that the fruits of Chris- 
tian piety have been confined to the field of 
one special polity? The plain truth is that 
these fruits have not been limited to a fenced- 
in area. Under widely diverse forms of church 
government men have given indubitable signs 



260 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of having reached in their dominant disposition 
the high estate of children of God. An occa- 
sional individual may perhaps have the hardi- 
hood to deny this fact and to maintain that out- 
side of certain ecclesiastical lines men live only 
a starved kind of spiritual life upon a moiety 
of uncovenanted grace. But broad-minded 
and well-informed men, whose vision is not 
shut in by Pharisaic mist, know that spiritual 
fruitage has not been limited to the area of 
one particular polity as opposed to that of 
others. We are therefore summoned by an 
overwhelming historical attestation to believe 
that a polity of a particular sort is not an es- 
sential of Christian society. 

This conclusion is furthermore supported by 
specific data of early Christian history. It can- 
not be proved that Christ imposed anything 
like a definite polity or church constitution. 
While he placed under special training a select 
group of disciples, He trained them rather for 
a prophetical calling than for that of ecclesi- 
astical magistrates. He educated them above 
all things to be missionary heralds of great 
religious facts and truths. No record indi- 
cates that He put so much as an outline of 
church constitution into their hands. He spoke 
indeed a few strong sentences relative to the 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 261 

discharge of the responsibilities of religious 
leadership. But these sentences were only- 
vivid and inspiriting forms of the assurance 
that, in the great task of founding Chris- 
tian society and gaining for it a standing room 
in the world, they should be effectually as- 
sisted by the Holy Spirit. There is absolutely 
no need to read into this half dozen sentences a 
specific form of church constitution made bind- 
ing for all time. History shows that the 
apostles themselves did not discover in them 
any such meaning. They did not start out 
with any ready made scheme. Polity was un- 
mistakably a matter of growth under their 
administration, new features being supplied as 
new exigencies called for them. At a given 
point the office of deacon was instituted, at 
least in germ. At another and unknown point 
elders were constituted a governing board in 
each local church. The New Testament does 
not show that episcopacy in the ordinary sense, 
that is, of individual headship over a specific 
territory, had been reached in the life-time of 
the apostles. But it was installed in Asia 
Minor near the beginning of the second cen- 
tury, and became within a few decades a com- 
mon feature of the Church. Now a polity re- 
alized in this way of progressive advance can- 



262 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

not reasonably be supposed to have been a 
matter of distinct original prescription* 
Neither is it necessary or practicable to take 
it as an authoritative model. If one seizes it 
at a particular point, and says, up to this stage 
it is authoritative, he can at once be met with 
the inquiry, How do you know that it is not 
left to the practical wisdom of the Church to 
bring in new adjustments, in order to meet 
new conditions? The discretion of the early 
Church accommodated its scheme to new exi- 
gencies. Who knows that the exigencies com- 
ing properly into consideration were all met 
by Christian society in the Grseco-Roman 
world within the narrow limits of the apostolic 
age? 

The conclusion that a specific type of polity 
is not of the essence of the Church does not 
exclude the opinion that one type is better 
fitted than another to be approved as the ulti- 
mate or ideal type. In the civil sphere there 
is good reason for believing that the form 
suited to the most advanced society is the one 
which contemplates men as a body of freemen 
having properly a voice in the management of 
matters of common concern. Analogy then 
favors the supposition that, for the advanced 
stages of religious society, the most suitable 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 263 

form of government will be that which evokes 
and utilizes the interested cooperation of the 
whole body of intelligent Christians. It hap- 
pens, too, that apostolic precedent seems to be 
largely in favor of this type. For while the 
apostles, in virtue of their special training and 
competency, were unavoidably intrusted with a 
species of leadership, they fulfilled this respon- 
sibility in the spirit of Peter's injunction to 
the elders, to rule not as lording it over their 
charges, but as making themselves examples 
to the flock. It was their custom, as is made 
quite apparent in the first chapters of the 
Book of Acts, to consult the full assembly of 
believers in matters of general interest; and 
in their estimate the whole body of the Chris- 
tian people was ranked as a "holy priesthood," 
qualified "to offer up spiritual sacrifices ac- 
ceptable to God through Jesus Christ." 5 

VI: The Church Militant 

The primitive disciples needed all the en- 
couragement which the great promises of their 
Master were suited to impart. How could 
they expect to succeed unless their ascended 
Lord should shower down might upon them 

5 1 Pet. ii, 5. For a somewhat elaborate exposition of historical 
and doctrinal matters pertinent to the theme of church govern- 
ment, the reader is referred to the author's "Sacerdotalism in 
the Nineteenth Century." The Abingdon Press, New York. 



264. THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

through the presence and energetic working 
of the Holy Spirit? The world into which 
they were sent forth was unfriendly, in large 
part fiercely hostile. To this unfriendly 
world they bore a message well calculated to 
elicit enmity. The world was proud; they 
preached the need of humility. The world was 
full of sensuality; they preached the demands 
of purity. The world was intemperately de- 
voted to pleasure-seeking; they preached so- 
briety and self-restraint in the use of the lower 
enjoyments. The world was given to idolatry ; 
they preached the need of turning to the wor- 
ship and service of the true God. Their mes- 
sage was for the healing of the nations, a verit- 
able water of life to any who were athirst for 
righteousness; but it was not wanted by the 
great mass of carnally-minded men. So the 
pathway of discipleship was often a pathway 
of martyrdom, and the witness for Jesus had 
to witness with his shed blood as well as with 
his spoken word. 

With the spread of Christianity and the ex- 
tension of its influence over large portions of 
the world, the storm of persecuting violence 
was for the larger part brought to an end. But 
that fact by no means implies that the Church 
has ceased, or can cease during the period of 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 265 

earthly history, to be a militant Church, a 
Church engaged in arduous and continuous 
spiritual warfare. Its high aim is to unite men 
in a universal brotherhood wherein the law of 
supreme love to God and of equal love to the 
neighbor shall be fulfilled. In pursuing this 
aim it must encounter all the forces of rebel- 
lion in men's hearts against the higher law, 
all their selfishness, greed for wealth and lust 
of power, all their frivolity of spirit, lack of 
lofty aspiration, and tendency to fall under 
the dominion of enslaving appetite. Indeed 
the Church has no more difficult task to fulfill 
than that of keeping its own members true to 
the high standards set before them in the gos- 
pel. How easy it is for them to lapse into 
worldliness, to grow lukewarm in their zeal, 
and to forget the demands of patience, love, 
and brotherliness ! Again and again has the 
Church been wounded and put to shame by 
those who should have been its glory and de- 
fense. A far-seeing mind might have antici- 
pated that such would be the case ; for, the task 
of lifting men out of sin into holiness, out of 
egoism into unselfish love, is the most difficult 
of all that are attempted beneath the skies, and 
we cannot well think of omnipotence itself 
being employed upon anything more difficult. 



266 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

But if the Church must be militant it lias 
still no occasion to deplore its lot. It is its 
glory that it is called to contend for the best 
and the highest, even for the dominion of truth, 
love, and righteousness. It is its crown of 
rejoicing that, taking the ages through, it is 
certain to contend successfully. He who has 
overcome the world leads on the hosts of His 
followers and guarantees at least a wide-reach- 
ing victory. 

According to a confident expectation of 
many of our contemporaries, a grand expedi- 
ent is pending for ushering in the triumphant 
reign of Christ in the earth. He is to come 
in personal distinct manifestation of Himself, 
and to accomplish speedily results which the 
ordinary agencies of evangelism can approxi- 
mate with extreme slowness, if indeed they can 
make any headway at all toward them. The 
advocates of this doctrine of the "premillen- 
nial advent" differ from one another on vari- 
ous points. Those among them who can per- 
haps be credited with the largest significance, 
since they constitute an appreciable percentage 
in some of the larger communions, hold gener- 
ally such propositions as the following: (1) 
The visible advent of Christ, though its date 
is not exactly determinable, is in all probabil- 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 267 

ity near at hand. (2) The present world 
powers, as being essentially hostile to the reign 
of Christ, are to be displaced, and in their 
removal such measures of force will be em- 
ployed as may be found necessary. (3) The 
Jews, reinstated in Palestine, and converted 
to the Christian faith, will serve as the special 
agents of Christ in executing His sovereign 
will. ( 4 ) The Kingdom thus set up and made 
practically triumphant will endure for a thou- 
sand years. At the close of this millennial 
period the order or regime of eternity will be 
installed. 

Passing by other forms of Premillenarian 
or radical Adventist theory we will record a 
few comments upon the scheme inclusive of the 
propositions named. In the first place, the 
grounds cited for the conclusion that the sec- 
ond advent of Christ is close at hand are not 
convincing. Adventurous theories figure too 
largely in them to leave to them any degree of 
credibility. Thus there is an arbitrary dealing 
with chronological data, or with biblical state- 
ments that are accounted such, the motive be- 
ing to secure such a long range to certain pro- 
phetical intimations that they can be made to 
apply to modern unf oldments. In the last cen- 
tury this end was secured, in numerous in- 



^ 



268 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

stances, by construing chronological terms as 
symbolical. Thus "days" were interpreted as 
meaning years and "times" as denoting periods 
of three hundred and sixty years each. In re- 
cent years premillenarians, belonging to the 
constituency with which we are specially con- 
cerned, for the most part are not inclined, so 
far as we can judge, to render a positive ap- 
proval to this exegetical device. They prob- 
ably experience some difficulty in supposing 
that the biblical writers were so desperately 
enamored of word-puzzles that they used 
terms distant by a whole diameter from the 
meanings which they attached to them. Pos- 
sibly they may have noticed that the Psalmist 
speaks of silver being purified "seven times," 
and did not care to attribute to him the fanciful 
notion of the metal being kept in the furnace 
twenty-five hundred and twenty years. At any 
rate they seem not generally to have embraced 
the exegetical device under consideration. But 
very largely they have taken up with a device 
for securing a long range to prophetic utter- 
ances which is about as much exposed to chal- 
lenge as is that which most of them have hesi- 
tated to espouse. In order to extract from 
the books of Daniel and Revelation forecasts 
bearing on our own times, they take the lib- 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 269 

erty to construe the ten kings which they men- 
tion as denoting ten kingdoms, 6 which can be 
supposed to be perpetuated through many 
generations. The expedient may be ingenious, 
but what there is to recommend it besides the 
use to which it is put, no one can discover. 
Moreover, it encounters obstacles which may 
fitly be regarded as condemning it to down- 
right failure. As respects the Book of Daniel 
the possibility of the extended outlook has not 
been duly established by the exponents of Pre- 
millenarianism, and in all likelihood cannot be 
established. That possibility is excluded if by 
the fourth kingdom depicted in Daniel's pro- 
phecy was not meant the Roman Empire, but 
rather the Greek Empire of Alexander and 
his successors, which had already come to an 
end at the beginning of the Christian era. Now 
recent biblical criticism is strongly enlisted for 
this conclusion, and it certainly finds weighty 
support in the contents of the Book of Daniel. 
So a decidedly precarious status is given to any 
construction built upon this book relative to the 
era or the conditions of the second advent. 

In case of the Book of Revelation the out- 
look is undoubtedly upon the Roman Empire. 
But the Revelator tells us himself that he 

8 Dan. vii ; Rev. xiii, xvii. 



J 



270 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

writes of things shortly to come to pass. Re- 
liable data respecting events to be introduced 
in our age he does not supply. He makes no 
attempt to carry his forecast beyond the Ro- 
man Empire, except in a very brief reference 
to the climax which ends earthly history. Now 
the Roman Empire has utterly disappeared, 
and the attempt to view it as conserved in ten 
kingdoms, into which it is supposed to have 
been broken up, plainly miscarries. What the 
Revelator mentions is not ten kingdoms, but 
ten kings. Moreover nobody can name with 
the slightest assurance any such group of king- 
doms. And suppose it were possible to name 
them, it would be quite outside of rational war- 
rant to count them as representative of any- 
thing like the world dominion for which the 
Roman Empire stood in the mind of the Reve- 
lator. They would be seen to constitute only 
a part of Europe (with a possible inclusion of 
a fraction of Western Asia) . The great world 
of the Orient and the great world of the Ameri- 
can Occident, which powerfully condition 
world affairs to-day, fall entirely outside their 
bounds. The plain truth is, we are in a world 
where forecasts relating to occurrences to take 
place on the theater of the Roman Empire can 
have no intelligible application, at least in any 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 271 

literalistic sense. The Book of Revelation is 
out of the field, so far as data for determining 
the time of the advent are concerned. 

The belief that Christ's visible coming is 
close at hand, which in some minds is founded 
on the increased migration of the Jews to Pal- 
estine and on current discussions about the 
provision of a home for them in that land, has 
no serious claim to consideration. A paltry- 
embryonic Palestinian state in which the 
people of that race constitute only a minority, 
a state dependent for its initiation and con- 
tinued existence on the friendly offices of 
Christian powers, is no sign of world-govern- 
ing competency in the Jews; neither can it 
serve as a pledge that they will be set over the 
world, under the headship of Christ, except 
to those who are determined that omnipotence 
shall employ itself in fulfilling their fond 
speculations. 

The conditions advise us to desist from at- 
tempts to fix, even approximately, the time of 
Christ's second coming. We are not likely 
to succeed in such a venture any better than 
did the Montanists of the second century. 

Our second comment on the radical Adven- 
tist or Premillenarian scheme applies to the 
very tenuous foundation provided for the idea 



<s 



272 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of a visible reign of Christ upon the earth at 
any future period. Not a single unequivocal 
text can be cited from the New Testament in 
behalf of that idea. Only one text can be cited 
which may fairly be regarded as possibly in- 
closing the notion of the visible reign. That 
is found in Revelation xx, 4-6, where it is 
declared of a company of martyred saints 
that, by virtue of a resurrection, they shall 
live and reign with Christ a thousand years. 
No specification is made as to the theater of 
this joint reign. Some reputable commenta- 
tors think the Revelator had reference to a 
visible earthly theater; other commentators 
worthy of high respect are of the opinion that 
he designed to picture in dramatic form a rule 
having its seat in the heavenly sphere. From 
the terms employed it is impossible to reach 
a certain conclusion. 

The New Testament taken as a whole fur- 
nishes no reliable basis for the doctrine of an 
earthly kingdom under the visible headship of 
Christ. On the contrary, it is positively ad- 
verse in its teaching. As an expert investi- 
gator of apocalyptic literature remarks: "In 
all other writers of the New Testament 
[aside from the Revelator] this doctrine is not 
only ignored, but its acceptance is made im- 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 273 

possible in their definite doctrinal systems of 
the last things, for in these the second advent 
and the last judgment synchronize. Thus the 
millennium, or the reign of Christ for one 
thousand years on the present earth, or any 
other form of the temporary Messianic King- 
dom, cannot be said to belong to the sphere 
of Christian doctrine." 7 To appeal to the Old 
Testament on this point will not help out the 
case for the Premillenarian. Whatever antici- 
pations the old prophets may have entertained 
about a revived and flourishing Jewish King- 
dom, they put forth no message relative to the 
descent of the Messiah from heaven to take 
personal visible direction of that kingdom. 

Our third comment respects the Premil- 
lenarian thesis on the primacy which is to fall 
to the Jews in the government of the world 
during the millennial era. Where is the basis 
for that thesis, that radical assumption about 
the perpetuation of a most emphatic racial dis- 
tinction under what we are accustomed to 
designate a Christian dispensation? The as- 
sumption certainly stands in amazing contrast 
with the import of Christ's declaration : "Who- 
soever shall do the will of God, the same is my 

7 R. H. Charles, "A Critical History of the Doctrine of the 
Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity," p. 350. 



274 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

brother, and sister, and mother." 8 It is also 
counter to His repeated utterances on the na- 
ture of the Kingdom of God, as an inner spir- 
itual reality, rather than an external magis- 
tracy in the hands of either Jews or Gentiles. 
An attempt to invalidate the force of this 
series of texts by distinguishing between 
"kingdom of heaven" and "Kingdom of God," 
and by applying the former term to the mil- 
lennial kingdom under Jewish rulership, dis- 
tinctly fails; for it is made plain to a demon- 
stration by a comparison of passages that the 
distinction of terms was due to varying re- 
ports of identical utterances of Christ. 

No less than the standpoint of Christ that 
of Paul is clearly contradicted by this intem- 
perate exaltation of Jewish nationality. It 
squarely collides with his maxim that in Christ 
there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian nor 
Scythian. 9 Its tendency is to generate a 
counter current against his great achievement 
in behalf of the universality of Christianity. 
Paul indeed had hopes for the Jews, his kins- 
men according to the flesh; but these simply 
amounted to the anticipation that in the mercy 
of God they would cease to furnish a chief 
theater for antichrist, and would join with the 

8 Mark iii, 35. 
•Col. iii, 11. 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 275 

Gentiles in a common faith on the crucified and 
risen Lord. To postulate for them an extraor- 
dinary world-wide regency was plainly foreign 
to his thought. 

The Johannine writings — the fourth Gospel 
and the Epistles of John — fully match the 
Pauline in lack of support for the notion of a 
prospective enthronement of the Jews over 
this world. While great account is made in 
them of the valuable bequests from the Juda- 
ism of the past, they indicate an attitude of 
singular aloofness from contemporary Juda- 
ism, and assign to the Jewish people in rela- 
tion to the future no significance whatever. 
That people is put out of sight as unmistak- 
ably as are Jerusalem and the temple in the 
picture which Christ gave to the woman of 
Samaria relative to the worship of the coming 
age. 

Failing of any basis in the New Testament 
for his doctrine of the regnant position predes- 
tined to the Jews, the Premillenarian is logi- 
cally driven to lean upon Old Testament data. 
No doubt the prophets gave expression to 
some glowing anticipations relative to a thriv- 
ing Jewish Kingdom in the coming days. But 
is it necessary to look for a literal fulfillment 
of all that they penned in this vein? Premil- 



276 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

lenarians themselves find it impossible to do 
that. For instance, for the major part they 
limit the kingdom set up at the second advent 
under the primacy of the Jews to one thousand 
years, whereas in various of the old prophe- 
cies the Israelite realm is represented as 
destined to stand forever. 10 In the use of 
reasonable canons of interpretation some cur- 
tailment of the demand for a correspondence 
between prediction and the historical unfold- 
ment is quite legitimate. In voicing their ex- 
pectations the prophets had to depend largely 
upon materials supplied by their environment. 
It is enough to find that their expectations, if 
not exactly fulfilled, were not really belied. 
In fact it can truly be said that they were 
transcended. For Israel to be raised up from 
the apparent death of the Babylonish cap- 
tivity, to serve as the household in which the 
Prince of Peace was born, and to have oppor- 
tunity to transmit its precious accumulated 
riches for the furtherance of His spiritual rule 
over mankind — all this amounts to the fulfill- 
ment of a higher calling than falls to the lot 
of any ordinary kingdom of this world. 

We are far from wishing to convey the im- 
pression that Premillenarians are all com- 

10 Dan. ii, 44: Ezek. xxxvii, 24, 25. 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 217 

mitted to equally emphatic views on the ex- 
traordinary importance, the inalienable pri- 
macy of the Jews in relation to the divine 
kingdom in this world. What it is permissible 
to say is, that their scheme at the extreme 
makes Christianity only a comparatively 
empty interlude between two stages of Juda- 
ism, and turns God Most High into an om- 
nipotent Judaizer. 

Our final comment is in expression of the 
conviction that the Premillenarian scheme 
unduly exalts the efficacy of agencies essen- 
tially physical in their nature. It proclaims 
the impotency of the preaching of the gospel 
to convert the world. In face of Christ's own 
declaration that it was expedient for Him to 
go away, in order that His cause might be ad- 
vanced through the more abundant working of 
the Holy Spirit, it asserts that, apart from His 
return and visible rule, the prospect for the 
Kingdom of God, or the triumph of Chris- 
tianity, is hopeless. To thus exalt instrumen- 
talities of an external kind is below the plane 
of the New Testament, and is without discov- 
erable warrant anywhere. History has not 
indicated that physical might and display are 
potent to accomplish spiritual transformations. 

We deeply respect the earnest piety of a 



278 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

large proportion of present-day Premillenar- 
ians. But to give countenance to their scheme 
would contradict the interpretation of Chris- 
tianity which permeates this volume. The 
Church militant will do wisely to expect to ad- 
vance the Kingdom of God by using, in co- 
operation with the spiritually present Christ, 
such means as the preaching and practice of 
the holy truths of the gospel. 

VII: The Great Events Preparatory to the Era of 
the Church Triumphant 

The two events which stand out most promi- 
nently in the biblical representation are the 
resurrection and the judgment. Of the for- 
mer the most detailed treatment is supplied by 
Paul's discourse in the fifteenth chapter of 
First Corinthians. Here the resurrection is 
represented as an event coextensive with at 
least the whole company of the righteous dead, 
occurring at a special era, and investing its 
subjects with bodies of a higher type than those 
formerly possessed, bodies so well adapted to 
the needs of spirits that they may be styled 
spiritual bodies, though not such in strictness. 
The apostle makes his statements apparently 
with dogmatic confidence. It has been sur- 
mised, however, by some commentators that, 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 279 

shortly after writing down this epitome of his 
belief, he changed his view on one prominent 
point, and came to hold that the resurrection, 
instead of occurring for men generally at a 
given era, in immediate proximity with the 
close of the dispensation, takes place shortly 
after death for each individual. The ground 
for this inference is the language used in Sec- 
ond Corinthians v, 1-4, where the apostle 
speaks of his longing to be clothed upon with 
his house from heaven, as opposed to remaining 
unclothed, or in a disembodied state. The form 
of statement can suggest that death was ex- 
pected to be followed speedily by an invest- 
ment of the spirit with a new body. However, 
in all probability that was not Paul's thought. 
In his vivid anticipation he passes over the in- 
terval to be spent in the intermediate state, 
which indeed he had no means of measuring 
and was at liberty to rate as very brief. Later 
texts from his hand imply that he still enter- 
tained the supposition of a general resurrec- 
tion at a particular era. 11 

It was noticed elsewhere that some of the 
New Testament references to the resurrection 
might be understood as denoting simply the 
transference of the dead to an estate of vital 

11 Phil, iii, 20, 21. See also 2 Tim. ii, 18. 



280 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

immortality, and not an investment with 
bodies. But the implication is that the latter 
conception prevailed in the primitive Chris- 
tian community. The subject as a whole is 
one upon which minute dogmatic specification 
is not appropriate. It incloses a prophecy of 
a great good, the precise nature of which must 
be left to future discovery. 

The great final judgment is a theme which 
readily lends itself to dramatic representation. 
It is in this practically effective form that it 
is depicted in the Scriptures. The terms em- 
ployed are those congenial to the religious 
imagination. The basal truth to be elicited 
from them is the certain consummation of the 
judicial process which is going on through the 
ages, the ultimate complete adjustment be- 
tween lot on the one hand and character and 
conduct on the other. Every man shall infal- 
libly reach his own proper place — that is the 
lesson of the judgment scene. 

In conformity with prophetical terminology, 
the penalty falling upon those unable to meet 
the judgment tests is sometimes represented 
as a casting forth into darkness and fire. In 
the use of such imagery there was probably no 
other intention than to emphasize the extrem- 



THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY 281 

ity of the loss incurred. It would be no real 
trespass, therefore, against biblical authority 
to give full scope to the rational consideration 
that extirpation of moral and religious sen- 
sibility is the essential and truly dreadful pen- 
alty of persistent misdoing. Indeed this very 
principle of retribution may be regarded as 
implied in this declaration from Christ: "He 
that hath not, from him shall be taken even 
that which he hath." 12 

By parity of reasoning the great reward of 
those favored with an approving sentence is 
perfection of moral and religious sensibility, 
fullness of all the elements of a rich and satis- 
fying inner experience. Heaven is a name for 
the estate wherein all fellowship, service, and 
activity are completely dominated by love. To 
one, however, who enthrones this point of view 
large liberty may fitly be granted in painting 
accessory features. For the great mass of 
people the picturesque is capable of fulfilling 
a useful office. Therefore many sentences in 
the Book of Revelation carry a beneficent mes- 
sage. Like strains of celestial music they de- 
scend age after age upon the hearts of those 
who feel deeply the burdens and troubles of 
life in its earthly environment. 

"Mark iv, 25. 



CHAPTER VIII: THE PREEMI- 
NENCE OF CHRISTIANITY AS 
RESPECTS A RIGHTFUL 
CLAIM TO UNIVERSALITY 
AND FINALITY 

The grounds of faith in the title of Chris- 
tianity to universality and finality have been 
in very large part indicated in the preceding 
chapters. In relation to some of these grounds 
there is very little call for further exposition. 
It will be appropriate, however, even at the 
expense of a slight measure of repetition, to 
award a mention even to these, in order that 
the reader may have under his hand a com- 
pact statement of the whole list of important 
data which warrant the heading given to this 
closing discussion. Our task is to set forth 
these data as economically as may be feasible. 

/: A Very Unique and Significant Antecedent 

The Old Testament cannot fairly be de- 
scribed in terms less emphatic. In manifold 
ways it placed a full treasury at the disposal 
of Christianity. Its ample list of wise and 

282 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 283 

vividly expressed precepts on the conduct of 
life, its dramatic presentation of lessons in 
morals through a long series of stirring histori- 
cal scenes, its wonderfully rich and varied 
psalmody — these, along with much else, were 
invaluable contributions to the later religion. 
The crowning bequest, however, can be 
summed up in a single phrase, ethical mono- 
theism. From no other quarter could this in- 
dispensable foundation have been derived. 
Monotheism elsewhere, if it had any formal 
acknowledgment, was compromised more or 
less by the coexistence of polytheistic worships, 
also by dualistic or pantheistic conceptions, 
and was marred as to its ethical character by 
the wide scope given to magic. A pure, lofty, 
and thoroughly moralized monotheism it was 
the high office of the Hebrew people to fashion. 
Other religions have had antecedents by 
which they have profited; but it is quite safe 
to say that in genuine religious potency they 
were not comparable to the Old Testament in 
its relation to Christianity. Possibly it might 
be imagined that Mohammedanism, as being 
posterior in origin to Christianity as well as to 
Judaism, was favored with peculiarly rich and 
extensive antecedents. Indeed, advocates of 
Bahaism, that recent offshoot from Moham- 



284 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

medanism, have in effect expressed this judg- 
ment. But they proceed on very mistaken 
premises. Mohammed never had any first- 
hand or adequate acquaintance with either 
Judaism or Christianity. Neither he nor those 
who followed him made a real beginning 
toward bringing their religion into organic 
connection with that which emanated from 
Jesus Christ. Instead of going forward on 
that basis, they fell behind even the outcome 
of the Jewish dispensation. The simple indis- 
putable fact is that the temporal posteriority, 
while taken advantage of to make sundry bor- 
rowings, was not utilized with the care or un- 
derstanding requisite to enable Mohamme- 
danism to approximate to the plane of the 
antecedent religions. 

Now what does the lot of Christianity in be- 
ing dowered with this exceptional inheritance 
import? Is it to be presumed that it simply 
happened to be favored with the marvelous 
background supplied by the Old Testament 
dispensation? The warrantable inference, it 
strikes us, is that the arrangement was the 
product of design, that God wanted to prepare 
the way for the extraordinary Messenger of 
Truth who was to come in the fullness of time. 

In laying the maximum stress upon the Old 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 285 

Testament antecedent of Christianity, it has 
not been designed to intimate that the historic 
evolution in other quarters contributed nothing 
to the New Testament religion. Our conten- 
tion is that materials from elsewhere were dis- 
tinctly subordinate to those which were fur- 
nished by the Hebraic dispensation. Neither 
the Grasco-Oriental compound embodied in 
the Mystery Religions nor any other religious 
product anterior to the days of Jesus and the 
apostles is to be compared with the Old Tes- 
tament as a source of New Testament religion. 1 

II: Incomparable Realization of the Union of the 
Ideal amd the Historical 

It has been noticed that the union of the 
ideal and the real in a historic personality is a 
requisite for the most efficient religion, and 
that Christianity claims to possess in its Foun- 
der this requisite. 

The claim is exceptional. In no one of the 
ethnic systems can a proper parallel be found. 
The founder of one or another of these sys- 
tems, it is true, may have been idealized at an 
epoch comparatively distant from that of his 
place in history. But no assumption of an im- 

1 For a compact exposition of the mystery religions and their 
bearing on the New Testament content, the reader is referred 
to the author's little book, "The Mystery Religions and the New 
Testament." The Abingdon Press, New York. 



286 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

maculate character and career appears in their 
earlier oracles, and the validity of the systems 
is not made dependent upon such an assump- 
tion. Mohammed made no claim to have lived 
a perfect life ; neither was such a claim made 
for him by his early followers. Moreover the 
record proves that he was guilty of downright 
faults. Not to mention other instances, the 
compromise which he made for a brief interval 
with the Meccan idolatry cannot possibly be 
rated as anything else than a culpable misstep. 
Gautama started out in ignorance of the true 
way, and acquired, in his own opinion, ability 
to teach that way as the result of a discovery 
made in his maturer years. That he was, or 
needed to be for the discharge of his vocation, 
an example of a sinless career was no tenet of 
original Buddhism. Primitive Confucianism 
and primitive Zoroastrianism were equally 
remote from asserting such a tenet in behalf 
of their founders. A genuine counterpart to 
the standpoint of primitive Christianity is not 
to be found in any of these domains. The un- 
doubting conviction stamped upon the apos- 
tolic literature, and so reflecting the tone of 
the preaching that followed close upon the 
crucifixion — that in Christ the pure ideal of 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 287 

character and conduct was enshrined — stands 
out as an unparalleled fact in history. 

Proof that this lofty claim was actually ful- 
filled in Christ cannot, of course, be furnished 
in the form of direct demonstration, since sin- 
less perfection reaches too deep to be discov- 
erable by ordinary means of observation. The 
most that can be expected is such a cumulation 
of indirect evidences as may serve as a proper 
basis of rational certitude. These we have 
reviewed (Chapter III) and found not to be 
scanty, so that on this score we may with so- 
briety credit to Christianity an enormous pre- 
eminence. 

777: Exceptional Prestige and Authority on the 

Score of the Transcendent Personality of the 

Founder 

Under the preceding topic the whole em- 
phasis was given to the unique distinction 
which pertains to Christianity through the ex- 
emplification of the ideal of sinless perfection 
in the person of Christ. No reference was 
made to any endowment transcending human 
measures. It needs to be remembered, how- 
ever, that the stainless life and character of 
Christ hold no indifferent relation to the proof 
of His transcendent nature and work. If He 



£88 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

was unique to that extent, we are under prac- 
tical compulsion to regard His uniqueness as 
reaching to a still higher plane. He who em- 
bodied the moral ideal, whose unstained spirit 
must have been singularly open to the higher 
realm of truth and reality, cannot be denied 
a peculiar competency to render authentic tes- 
timony respecting Himself. Now that testi- 
mony makes for the conclusion that He was, 
and knew Himself to be, the Son of God in 
a transcendent sense. No other induction can 
be derived from the Gospels, even from the 
Synoptical Gospels, as we have taken pains to 
show (Chapter IV), to say nothing about the 
Johannine version of the life story of Christ. 

The very pronounced bearing of this truth 
of Christ's transcendent or divine sonship on 
the preeminence and finality of Christianity 
cannot be challenged. No ethnic system 
claims any such distinction for its founder, 
unless it be in narratives which historical criti- 
cism stamps as sheer mythology. Good cre- 
dentials for the actual possession of the dis- 
tinction on the part of Christianity are ex- 
cellent proof that it can never be superseded. 
Doubtless the expression of its principles 
which is given in one age may be improved 
upon in the next. But no historic personage 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 289 

can outrank the Son of God, and the religion 
which has Him for its personal center must 
be regarded as in its characteristic teachings 
thoroughly authoritative. 

IV: Inclusion of Every Prominent Excellence Dis- 
coverable m the Ethnic Systems 

If we take these systems as they have been 
sketched (Chapter I), and make full account 
of their best traits, we shall find it difficult, or 
rather impossible, to convict Christianity of 
falling short at any point. The best which 
they are able to bring forward is represented, 
in at least equal measure, within its ample 
content. So obvious is this fact that a very 
brief list of illustrations will suffice. Begin- 
ning with Mohammedanism we may specify 
as its most commendable feature the solemnity 
and force with which it depicts the majestic 
sovereignty of God and the need of unquali- 
fied surrender thereto. The Koran contains 
passages which worthily accentuate this order 
of truth. Nevertheless the Christian finds no 
occasion to turn from his own oracles when 
he seeks grounds for an overmastering impres- 
sion of divine sovereignty and of human obli- 
gation to submission. In the writings of 
prophets and psalmists, as also in certain lofty 



£90 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

strains of the New Testament, he finds more 
than an equivalent to the Mohammedan trib- 
ute to the inexpressible greatness and absolute 
authority of God. Furthermore he cannot fail 
to notice the high distinction of his own reli- 
gion in joining with the given aspect of truth 
an ample declaration of a complementary as- 
pect. Notwithstanding a frequent formal 
mention of the mercy of God, the Koran, as 
has been observed, is comparatively empty in 
respect of the delineation of this side of the di- 
vine nature and administration. The warmly 
colored picture of the paternal character 
of God, which is a recurring feature in the 
Christian revelation, is wanting. In the Mo- 
hammedan outlook the mountain chain, sym- 
bolical of God's might and sovereignty, stands 
cold and somber under an unlighted sky. To 
the vision of the Christian the mountain chain 
is set aglow by the warm and brilliant rays 
of the risen sun. 

Glancing next at Zoroastrianism we are 
warranted to select as its most praiseworthy 
feature the emphasis it placed upon the an- 
tithesis between the morally good and the mor- 
ally evil. It was very much to its credit that 
it set before its votaries the ideal of life as an 
earnest militant struggle for the triumph of 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 291 

the principles and powers of righteousness in 
the world over their insistent foes. It is not 
apparent, however, that it can claim on this 
score an appreciation which is not due in at 
least equal degree to Christianity. Does not 
the latter reach the very acme of intensity in 
its summons to unrelenting warfare against 
all evil intrenched in the heart of the indi- 
vidual? Does it not also make the kingdom of 
God, the perfect rule of righteousness, the 
most worthful thing in view, the great object 
of prayer and effort? Surely the summons 
to moral conflict was never sounded forth in 
more emphatic and imperative terms than 
those employed by Christ and the apostles. 
No deficit along this line can be charged 
against Christianity. No less than Zoroas- 
trianism it stresses the moral conflict, and it 
has a clear advantage in the better basis which 
it provides for the ethical interest by its avoid- 
ance of the notion of a primal dualism. 

The need of comparison with Buddhism is 
suggested in particular by the exemplary 
stress which it placed upon the duty of uni- 
versal benevolence. As has been indicated, 
this missionary religion gave expression to 
some very beautiful and worthy sayings on 
the obligation to unstinted sympathy and 



292 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

kindness. It is fair to urge, nevertheless, that 
Christianity has no cause of abashment in the 
presence of this phase of Buddhistic teaching. 
Observe the force of Christ's injunction to love 
even the enemy, the import of the parable 
which He uttered respecting the good Samari- 
tan, the example of His marvelous self-de- 
votement in going to the cross for the un- 
worthy, the logical implications of Paul's lofty 
strain on the primacy of love, the far-reaching 
significance of the great Johannine declara- 
tion that God is love. Who that reviews this 
line of New Testament content can think of 
Christianity as being outranked by any rival 
as respects deeply founding and effectually 
urging the duty of universal benevolence? In 
its maxims it is not at all below the plane of 
Buddhism, and it has the great relative ad- 
vantage that it affords in its ideal of man, as 
the subject of a full and rounded life in an 
imperishable kingdom, a consistent basis for 
enforcing benevolent interest in one's fellows. 
Buddhism cannot claim to possess that basis. 
In representing the complete cessation of de- 
sire as the ideal consummation for the in- 
dividual, it virtually stamps the extinction of 
benevolent concern for others as something 
quite normal, as something indeed distinctive 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 293 

of those who have been made perfect. Through 
this breach of self-consistency Buddhism un- 
mistakably falls below Christianity as an ex- 
ponent of the principle of universal benevo- 
lence. 

Any further specimen of an excellence in 
an ethnic system which affords any real oc- 
casion of considering the relative merits of 
Christianity is not readily suggested. It may 
not be quite superfluous, however, to mention 
the doctrine of divine immanence as taught by 
Brahmanism, whether in its earlier or its later 
history. This doctrine, it is to be admitted, 
stands for a truth which must be given a 
prominent place in any rounded system of re- 
ligion, and the extent to which it has prevailed 
in India furnishes no mean tribute to the vital- 
ity of the religious consciousness of the Hindu 
people. It is not to their discredit that they 
have been disposed to think of God as all in 
all. The ground of criticism lies in the failure 
to give due place to the complementary truths 
relative to the transcendence of God and the 
reality of men as true agents. Through a 
too exclusive stress on the immanence of God 
they left no place to coexistent reality, and 
gravitated into a world-denying pantheism. 
Christianity illustrates here, as in other con- 



294 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

nections, its superiority, in that it gives a due 
recognition to complementary truths. It 
greatly emphasizes the divine immanence, the 
fact that in God we live and move and have 
our being. At the same time it refuses to sink 
God in the world, or to make His being simply 
co-extensive with the world, claiming for the 
latter a real though dependent existence. 

The outcome of the illustrative comparisons 
which have been made is to enforce the con- 
viction that Christianity is large and sym- 
metrical enough in its doctrinal content to give 
a proportionate place to all the distinctive ex- 
cellences which are discoverable in the ethnic 
systems. That this feature strongly supports 
the claim to finality is quite evident. 

V: Inculcation of the True Ideal on the Relation 
between Morality and Religion 

To harmoniously relate these two great in- 
terests and to secure to each its appropriate 
province is a task of exceeding difficulty. 
Numberless pages of religious history show 
how one or the other interest has been tres- 
passed against. In the less developed re- 
ligions generally a very imperfect adjustment 
has had place. The judgment sometimes ex- 
pressed that in the primitive faiths religion and 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 295 

morality were given no connection whatever 
we find occasion to repudiate. It is true, nev- 
ertheless, that the association between them 
was subject to much obscuration and mutila- 
tion. The extent to which belief in the efficacy 
of magic insinuated itself into the religious 
sphere had a deleterious effect upon the in- 
terests of morality, as conditioning well-being 
not upon character and conduct, but upon ar- 
bitrary and non-moral, not to say immoral, 
shifts. Even in the more developed ethnic 
systems the scope awarded to magic has often 
impaired the supremacy of the ethical point 
of view. The ancient Egyptian and Baby- 
lonian religions furnish illustration. Along 
with magic an exaggerated ceremonialism — 
which indeed always incorporates much of the 
magical element — has not infrequently tended 
to qualify the imperativeness of moral de- 
mands. Of this development Brahmanism, 
as we have seen, especially in its pre-Bud- 
dhistic period, afforded a notable example in 
that it made the gods themselves dependent 
upon the sacrificial system, and contradicted 
its more spiritual maxims by a line of declara- 
tions which imply that ceremonial observances 
may compensate even for serious faults in con- 



THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

duct. Thus in numerous instances the moral 
interest has been greatly compromised. 

On the other hand, we find in the ethnic 
systems examples of a combination between 
morality and religion quite decidedly exposed 
to criticism, in that the province of religion is 
abnormally curtailed. Confucianism and ori- 
ginal Buddhism are exposed to this stricture. 
The former accords but a cold recognition to 
the objects of religious veneration, and lays 
a preponderant stress upon a rather prosaic 
type of moralism. The latter took so little 
account of the agency of the gods as practi- 
cally to ignore them, and concentrated em- 
phasis upon a moralism of a genial and mys- 
tical type. In both religions the deficit on the 
religious side was too great not to enforce 
compensations of one or another kind in the 
later developments. 

A glance at other ethnic systems would only 
add to the evidence that an ideal adjustment 
of the relations between morality and religion 
is not discoverable in that range. For that 
adjustment we must turn to Christianity. Of 
course it is not meant to be asserted that 
throughout its history Christianity has pre- 
sented a perfect model of the union of morality 
and religion. That would be vastly too much 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 297 

to say. What can be asserted is that in the 
spirit and teaching of the Founder morality 
and religion appear inseparably conjoined 
and receive each an ideal measure of emphasis. 
The model in its rounded perfection is there 
set before the ages, as has been shown at some 
length ( Chapter III ) . The possession of this 
feature by Christianity evidently secures for it 
an extraordinary claim to preeminence. 

VI: The Upholding of a Lofty Ideal of Spiritual 
Sonship 

Between the servile and the filial disposition, 
between working for wages and devotement to 
worthy tasks through the simple constraint 
of a holy affection, there is a wide interval. 
Religion at its best cannot fail to award an 
emphatic preference to the filial ideal as 
against the servile. That the choice of Chris- 
tianity is most heartily and distinctly awarded 
to the former is not open to any fair question. 
Doubtless it is true that in the Christian ora- 
cles not a little is said about the rewards which 
await the faithful. But declarations of this 
order are to be understood in connection with 
the New Testament system. The rewards 
held forth are rewards of congruity, the results 



298 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

to which conduct and character fitly go for- 
ward in a well-ordered economy. They are 
neither bestowed by the Lord in the spirit of 
a paymaster, nor received in the temper of the 
mere servant working for hire. The rewarder 
is the heavenly Father, who in His bestow- 
ments takes account of receptivity rather than 
of desert in any legal sense; and the recipient 
is the child who recognizes in all that he re- 
ceives tokens of fatherly goodness. Accord- 
ing to the declaration of Christ men can enter 
the kingdom of heaven only by becoming as 
little children; and logically continuance in 
the kingdom and participation in its riches 
must be regarded as dependent on a continu- 
ous exemplification of the disposition which 
secured admission. 

The superiority which Christianity exhibits 
on this theme is far from being simply that of 
formal teaching. To repeat a truth which has 
already been emphasized, a unique basis for 
a religion of sonship was supplied in the ex- 
traordinary self-consciousness of Christ, His 
sun-clear, radiant sense of a filial relation to 
the Father. 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 299 

VII: The Making Room for Normal Emphasis on 

Service to the Present Age Alongside of Serious 

Regard for the World to Come 

That an emphatic strain is contained in the 
Bible relative to the interests of the world to 
come is undeniable. To some it may seem that 
this strain is thoroughly dominant and leaves 
but little scope for emphasis on the duty of 
making the most of this present world for one's 
self and one's fellows. This judgment, how- 
ever, is properly subject to modification. Two 
prominent considerations can be urged for the 
conclusion that a religion founded on the Bible 
can and ought to adopt a congenial attitude 
toward all true interests of this world. In the 
first place biblical teaching strongly commends 
the life of industry and thrift. One has but to 
glance into the wisdom literature of the Old 
Testament to get a vivid impression of the 
scorn with which it is permeated for the slug- 
gard. In the New Testament the demand for 
diligence in business may be put less rhetori- 
cally, but it is urged no less earnestly. Paul 
reminds his disciples that the enthusiasms of 
a new-found religious experience afford no 
valid ground for forsaking the calling in which 
one was brought up. According to the testi- 



300 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

mony of the Pastoral Epistles he denounces 
the believer who neglects to provide suitably 
for his household as a virtual denier of the 
faith and worse than an infidel. With all ear- 
nestness he inculcates the work habit, and 
goes so far as to prescribe, "If a man will not 
work, neither let him eat." 2 

In the second place, the Bible, along with 
this insistence upon work, promulgates with 
vigor the obligation to whole-hearted un- 
grudging benevolence. Now put these two 
things together, the prescription of the work 
habit and the inculcation of universal benevo- 
lence, and you have a sufficient basis for 
worldly enterprise. Every enterprise which 
sober judgment can sanction as being on the 
whole for the good of men appears in the light 
of biblical authority not only permissible, but 
obligatory. It would be no trespass against 
that authority to put into the primitive com- 
mand to subdue the earth the widest meaning 
which the most ambitious advocates of the duty 
of utilizing natural forces could wish, in the 
exercise of a far-seeing wisdom, to have put 
into it. 

But what about the biblical emphasis on 
regard for the world to come? What about 

2 See 1 Cor. vii, 20 ; 1 Tim. v, 8 ; Eph. iv, 28 ; 1 Thess. iv, 11 ; 
2 Thess. iii, 10. 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 301 

the injunction to lay up treasure in heaven? 
Is not this aspect of the Christian teaching in 
conflict with the purpose and endeavor to 
make the most of this world ? Possibly in con- 
flict with one or another plan for making the 
most of this world, but not in conflict with a 
wisely-devised plan. The most good cannot 
be gotten out of this world by the one who is 
swallowed up in purely earthly interests. Man 
cannot live by bread alone ; his capacious spirit 
requires other aliment for health and satisfac- 
tion. Complete absorption in material enter- 
prise is condemned to go on to disappointment. 
It cramps personality, whereas enlargement of 
personality is ever the condition of real and 
lasting gain. In the long run citizenship in 
this world can come to its best only by being 
linked with citizenship in a higher world. 
Doubtless it is possible to neglect the near at 
hand through a too exclusive attention to that 
which is above and beyond. But this is only 
saying that it is possible to give insufficient 
heed to the biblical requisition for work, thrift, 
world-subduing enterprise. In the ordering 
of life which the biblical religion approves the 
interest near at hand is supplemented rather 
than excluded by the transcendent interest. 
Throughout the normal career the latter works 



302 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

with the former, curbing excess and imparting 
added significance. Indeed the ideal consum- 
mation is that the eternal should be woven into 
the temporal, such dispositions, affections, as- 
pirations, and habits of thought being devel- 
oped amid present engagements as must be 
of prime value always and in any world. To 
use the Johannine form of description, the 
ideal is an eternal life begun in the present, 
a life born from above as respects its inner 
principle, and fitted to go right on in enlarg- 
ing beauty and strength in the world to come. 
We see, then, that Christianity judged by 
the full sum of its teaching, is truly a religion 
of two worlds. It harmonizes respect for the 
present with a due contemplation of the im- 
mortal life. 

VIII: The Granting of a Large Range for Conr 
tmuous Progress 

A religion which annexes to its underlying 
principles a great number of specific rules, and 
stamps these as being of divine authority, pre- 
pares for itself very uncomfortable and in- 
jurious restrictions. There are conditions in 
the civilization of one age which are not re- 
peated in that of another age. Accordingly 
a detailed set of rules shaped according to the 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 303 

conditions prevailing at the time of its pro- 
mulgation is likely to collide at one point or 
another with later developments of an ad- 
vancing civilization. So, for example, the 
Koran was made to give its sanction to fea- 
tures of a social order which a later generation 
must needs challenge, or else suffer rebuke 
for a culpable backwardness. Christianity 
avoids a dilemma of this sort, as being rather 
a religion of principles than of specific rules. 
Possibly a few of the apostolic prescriptions 
had for the primitive Christian age a per- 
tinency which does not belong to them in this 
century. Such, for instance, in the opinion 
of many, is Paul's injunction respecting the 
silence of women in the churches, an injunction 
having its motive very largely in the doubtful 
reputation attaching to women, claiming li- 
cense to speak in public in the contemporary 
Greek communities. But such prescriptions 
are so exceptional and of such subordinate im- 
port that they furnish no appreciable ground 
of embarrassment, except on a plan of inter- 
pretation unduly narrow and technical. In 
case of the particular rule adduced from Paul, 
it is enough to stress his broad conception of 
the abrogation of artificial distinctions among 
those who belong to Christ. Through his stal- 



304 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

wart assertion of that conception the apostle 
himself furnishes ample ground for the modi- 
fication of his own rule. By the evidence of 
history Christianity is a religion for every age. 
Its fundamental principles are on a plane 
which no civilization can transcend, and it 
leaves open a wide field for the application of 
those principles to any conditions which may 
be reached in the course of human progress. 

IX: The Ability to Meet m all Essential Respects 

the Demands of the Philosophical Ideal 

of Religion 

If place be made for the conviction that 
revelation furnishes a real contribution to the 
knowledge of religious verities, it follows as a 
matter of ready inference that it may authen- 
ticate some truths which philosophy in the use 
of its own resources may not be qualified con- 
fidently to affirm. The most that can be ex- 
pected of a philosophy as respects harmonious 
relations with a religion is that the former 
should not find it necessary to challenge any 
of the characteristic tenets of the latter, and 
should be able heartily to approve its funda- 
mental views of God, of man, and of the 
proper interrelations of God and man. 

As was noticed, in the revelation, which 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 305 

serves as the historical basis of Christianity, 
such views are suggested on the transcendence 
of God as are quite on a level with the best spec- 
ulative thought of any age. At the same time 
a very emphatic conception of the immanence 
of God in the creaturely universe is given vivid 
expression within the compass of the biblical 
writings. In the combination of the two 
points of view a safeguard is provided against 
the impairment of the religious interest by the 
intrusion of either deistic or pantheistic no- 
tions. On the ethical side the Christian doc- 
trine of God is in like manner comprehensive 
and complete. Stressing both divine right- 
eousness and divine love to the utmost, it sup- 
plies the necessary basis for fostering at once 
the sense of the demerit of sin and a salutary 
confidence in the readiness of God to receive 
into favor and fellowship anyone who will 
make earnest suit for His grace. To the lofty 
views inherited from the ethical monotheism 
of the Old Testament it adds the unrivaled 
picture of paternal goodness which was native 
to the illuminated consciousness of Jesus 
Christ. In short, Christianity puts such a con- 
tent into the idea of God that it is not possible 
to imagine any real ground of dissent on the 
part of a wide-visioned philosophy. 



306 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

The essential aspects of the Christian view 
of man and of his appropriate relations to God 
in like manner invite philosophic approval. 
As a mirror of human nature the oracles 
of Christianity are marvelously efficacious. 
What better can a philosophy that takes sober 
account of the facts of human history do than 
to formulate its conclusions in line with the 
biblical picture of man, bringing out on the 
one hand into clear light the things that make 
for his humiliation and shame, and on the 
other hand the things which testify to his 
greatness and glory? What better, too, can 
philosophy do than to accept as the ideal con- 
summation for man the realization of a spir- 
itual sonship, begun in the present and flower- 
ing in perfection through the endless years 
of an immortal life? On the Christian ideal 
of either God or man genuine philosophical 
thinking — we have good ground for believ- 
ing — can never bring any shadow of a dis- 
paraging judgment. 

As regards the finality of Christianity, it 
is possible to urge that the evidences which 
have been presented may prove the pre- 
eminence of this religion over all others up to 
date, without excluding the supposition that it 



THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 307 

may yet be surpassed and superseded. In re- 
sponse to this objection it is to be said, in the 
first place, that rational grounds for faith in 
the transcendent sonship of Christ are rational 
grounds for faith in the finality of the religion 
to which He is central. In the second place 
it can be contended that it is a strange mark 
of discretion to be anticipating a substitute for 
a religion which embraces, as does Christian- 
ity, a full group of the highest conceivable 
excellences. 

While sustaining the rightful title of Chris- 
tianity to universality, we have not found 
warrant for claiming that on this earthly stage 
it will ever actually secure complete dominion. 
Men are won to be true subjects of religion 
only with their free consent, and persuasions, 
however potent, are not invincible. What can 
be said is, that it is rational to believe that in 
the course of the ages a glorious ascendency 
will accrue to Christianity. Indeed, vital faith 
cannot well anticipate anything less. It is un- 
der compulsion to look forward to the time 
when the Christ, who bore so fully the burden 
of this world's sorrow and sin, "shall see of the 
travail of His soul and be satisfied." 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Advent, the second, 266 ff. 
Assurance of personal sal- 
vation, 226 ff. 
Athanasius, 167. 
Augustine, 201, 211. 



B 



Bahaism, 283 f. 

Baptism, 254 f. 

Bible, its variety and bal- 
ance, 64 ff.; its relation 
to revelation, 68 f.; the 
question of its iner- 
rancy, 72 ff. 

Bowne, B. P., 129. 

Box, G. H., 120. 

Brahmanism, 40 ff., 293 
ff. 

Bruce, A. B., 189. 

Buddhism, 32 ff., 286, 291 
ff., 296. 



Christ, as the moral ideal, 
79 ff . ; as teacher, 92 ff. ; 
as redeemer, 102 ff.; as 
Lord, 112 ff. ; as super- 
naturally conceived, 116 
ff.; as a subject of res- 
urrection, 121 ff. ; His 
essential relation to 
the Heavenly Father, 
156 ff. 

Christianity, the proposi- 
tions which enter into 
the proofs of its claims 
to universality and final- 
ity, 24 ff. ; list of evi- 
dences supporting its 
claims, 282 ff. ; fullness 
of its historical basis, 51 
ff. 

Church, 236, 241 ff. 

Confucianism, 29 ff., 296. 

Conscience, 187 ff., 206 f. 



Dalman, G., 118 f. 



Caird, Edward, 57. 
Canon, the biblical, 77 f. 
Ceremonials, the proper 

rating of, 251 ff. 
Charles, R. H., 273. 



E 



Ethics, profound stress 
upon, in the teaching of 
Christ, 94 ff., 294 ff.; 



311 



312 



INDEX 



Ethics, constitutional basis 

of, 187 ff. 
Eucharist, the, 254 f. 
Evolution, 172 ff., 190. 



Faith, 216 ff. 

Filial character, 208 f., 
297 f. 

Finality, claim of Chris- 
tianity to, 282 ff. 

Fiske, John, 18. 

Flesh, in the biblical esti- 
mate, 178 ff. 

Freedom, 195 ff. 



God, the proofs of His ex- 
istence, 126 ff.; elements 
of a high view of Him 
in the Hebrew Oracles, 
131 ff.; His attributes, 
142; His fatherhood in 
relation to men, 142 ff.; 
His providence, 153 ff.; 
trinitarian distinctions, 
163 ff. 

H 

Harnack, A., 120. 
Hinduism, 40 ff. 
Holy Spirit, the, 161 ff. 
Hopkins, E. W., 46. 
Hume, David, 129. 



Immanence, the divine, 167 

f., 224, 293, 305. 
Immortality, implicit ba- 



sis for its affirmation in 
the Old Testament, 58 
f., 183; the demonstra- 
tion which it derives 
from Christian theism, 
181 ff. 



Jesus. See Christ. 
Jevons, F. B., 20. 
Judgment, the final, 280 f. 
Justification, 223 f. 



Kingdom of God, 236 ff. 



Ladd, G. T., 2a 
Lao-tse, 31. 
Lessing, G. E., 69 f. 
Lobstein, P., 119. 

M 

Macdonald, D. B., 46 f. 

Man, the Genesis narra- 
tives respecting, and the 
amount of significance 
to be attached to them, 
169 ff.; estimate of the 
evolutionary theory of 
his origin, 172 ff. ; his 
dual nature, 175 ff. ; 
rating of the flesh in 
him, 178 ff.; his title to 
immortality, 181 ff.; his 



INDEX 



313 



moral outfit, 187 ff.; his 
endowment with free- 
dom, 195 ff. ; his actual 
condition or moral sta- 
tus, 200 ff. 

Miracles, tests of their 
credibility, 98 ff. 

Mohammedanism, 43 ff., 
283 f., 286, 289 f. 

Morality. See Ethics. 

Miinsterberg, H., 192. 

Mystery Religions, the, 
285. 



Obedience, evangelical, 
221. 

Old Testament, its contri- 
butions to Christianity, 
282 ff. 

Orr, James, 117. 



Philosophy in relation to 
Christianity, 304 ff. 

Polity of the Church, 258 
ff. 

Prayer, 151 ff., 233. 

Premillennialism, or radi- 
cal Adventism, 266 ff. 

Prophecy, Israelite, as his- 
torically conditioned, 56 
f.; as contributory to 
Christianity, 58 f. 

R 

Regeneration, 224 ff. 

Religion, definition of, 15; 
its universality and ne- 
cessity, 16 ff. 

Repentance, 221. 

Resurrection, of Jesus, 121 
ff. ; of men generally 
180 f., 278 ff. 

Royce, Josiah, 198. 



Palmer, E. H., 45. 

Paul, the Apostle, as wit- 
ness to the resurrection 
of Jesus, 121 f. ; his em- 
phasis on the divine fa- 
therhood, 146; his con- 
ception of the first man, 
171 ; his doctrine of "the 
flesh," 178 ff.; his view 
of man's condition by 
birth, 202; his teaching 
relative to predestina- 
tion, 213 ff. 

Pfleiderer, Otto, 44. 



Salvation, the doctrine of, 

206 ff. 
Sanctification, aids to its 

effectuation, 229 ff. 
Sanday, W., 117. 
Schmiedel, P. W., 119. 
Sidgwick, H., 188 f. 
Spirit, Pauline view of, 

175 f. 
Spiritualism, estimate of 

its alleged messages, 

185 f. 
State, the, 243, 246 ff. 
Statius, 21. 
Sufism, 46. 



314 



INDEX 



Theophilanthropists, 52. 
Thrift, as a part of the 

Christian ideal, 299 f. 
Toy, C. H., 20. 
Trinity, doctrine of the, 

163 ff. 
Tylor, E. B., 19. 
Tyrrell, George, 230. 

U 

Universality, as expressive 
of God's saving pur- 
pose, 210 ff. ; as de- 
scriptive of the rightful 



claim of Christianity, 
282 ff. 

V 

Van Oosterzee, 83. 
Virgin birth of Jesus, 116 

ff. 
Von Soden, H., 158 f. 

W 

Ward, James, 197. 
Weinel, H., 117. 
Williams, Monier, 40. 



Zoroastrianism, 27 ff.., 290. 



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